House owner held in scientist assault case

Four days after one retired scientist was physically assaulted and his daughter stripped over property discords by some Trinamool workers at Baruipur  in South 24 Parganas in West Bengal, police arrested one person on Thursday.

“Goutam Pal, the owner of the house has been arrested and produced at Baruipur sub-divisional court today (Thursday). He has been sent to a three day police custody,” Baruipur sub-divisional police officer Arnab Biswas said.

After initial dilly-dally, police started the case against 32 people mostly members of a local club and, slapped bailable charges against them. This is the first arrest made in this case.

The incident happened on Sunday when  nearly 30 youths from the TMC-dominated “Bhai Bhai Club,’ broke into the rented apartment of Aparesh Bhattacharya, 60, thrashed him and stripped his daughter before dragging them to the streets. Police was lackadaisical in their response and the duo had to wait on the streets helplessly for hours, the victims alleged.   However, Pal rubbished the charges against him.