A tailoring shop owner was allegedly kicked and punched and her house in Nadia ransacked last evening by members of a Kali puja committee when she refused to give them Rs 5,000 as subscription. Sukla Sarkar, in her mid-thirties, has been admitted to Ranaghat subdivisional hospital with severe pain in the abdomen. A doctor at the hospital said: “We suspect she has suffered internal injury in her lower abdomen as there is blood in her urine. We have given her medicines. An ultrasonography of her lower abdomen will be done tomorrow.” Sukla, who runs the shop from her home, said the youths first approached her for subscription on Monday. “I told them I would pay whatever I could afford and asked them to come to my home on Thursday,” she said. Around 15 puja committee members came to her home in Kushuria village in Gangnapur around 5.30pm yesterday and demanded Rs 5,000. “I was surprised as last year, I paid only Rs 151. I offered them Rs 201. But they refused. I told them my financial condition was not good. I live with my son, a Class XII student. I told the youths that my father and brother, who live in Bogula, help me sustain my family. But they used refused to listen and abused me. When I protested, they beat me up,” Sukla said. She said she was slapped and pushed to the ground. “They kicked me in the stomach and abdomen.” Sukla said she was alone in her home at the time of the assault as her son Pranay had gone for tuitions. “When the neighbours came to my rescue, the puja committee members threatened them with dire consequences and left. I informed police. A mobile patrol jeep arrived soon and the personnel told me to lodge a complaint with the local police station,” she said. “Minutes after the police left, the youths returned and ransacked my house. They broke windowpanes, overturned and broke furniture and again threatened me with dire consequences if I dared to lodge a police complaint,” she added. The shop owner, however, lodged a complaint with Gangnapur police station around 9 last night, naming the 15 youths. She then got admitted to the hospital. The subdivisional police officer of Ranaghat, Azhar Tauseef, said one of the accused, Shibshankar Biswas, had been arrested.“We conducted raids last night and arrested one person. The others have fled, but we expect to arrest them soon,” Tauseef said. The accused have been charged with “voluntarily causing hurt, extortion and molestation”. The arrested youth has been remanded in five days’ judicial custody. The police have instructed residents to tell committee members to seek police permission before organising the puja. An officer said: “Many of the committee members have past records of rowdyism and molestation. Some of them are out on bail. We have also learnt that these youths never issued receipts for subscriptions. They demand subscription according to their whims. The residents pay as they are scared.”
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 04:46:58 +0000
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