Kolkata, June 9 -- The former chairman of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and senior TMC leader Sabyasachi Dutta was arrested late on Monday night on allegations of extortion and criminal intimidation from New Town.
The case against Dutta was registered based on a complaint filed by a businessman identified as Madhusudan Chakraborty, who alleged that the TMC leader had extorted about Rs 1.05 crore from him in 2018. The complainant also alleged that he was threatened with being killed as well. On Monday night, Dutta was picked up from his New Town flat and brought to Bidhannagar North police station for questioning. After a few hours of interrogation, the TMC leader was arrested.
Dutta, however, claimed that he is innocent and the complainant himself is accused in multiple cheating cases and was arrested more than once. On Tuesday afternoon, while he was being moved out of the police station to go to the Bidhannagar Sub Divisional hospital and court, a group of people gathered at the police station pelted rotten eggs, tomatoes and cow dung at him.
While trying to protect Dutta, several policemen also got hit by the objects. After Dutta was produced at the court, the concerned magistrate remanded him to police custody for eight days after the hearing.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the councillor of KMC ward 63, Sushmita Bhattacharya Chatterjee and her husband, Salil Chatterjee, were arrested for allegedly extorting about Rs 30 lakh from an elderly person and threatening him. In a separate incident, a TMC leader identified as Prabir Majumdar alias Gupi, who is said to be close to the former Ashoknagar MLA Narayan Goswami, was arrested on Monday for alleged assault, threat and molestation.
Meanwhile, former minister Ujjal Biswas was arrested on Tuesday night in connection with an alleged case of misappropriation of government tarpaulins, hours after he was heckled by protesters outside his residence in Nadia district over the controversy.
Biswas, however, rejected the allegations and maintained that no misappropriation had taken place.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.