West Bengal: Ex-woman bureaucrat 'assaulted' by TMC leader over property dispute

A former woman bureaucrat was allegedly assaulted and threatened by a local Trinamool Congress leader over a property dispute in Salt Lake area here, a police officer said on Wednesday.

The leader, Bhaskar Sinha Roy, was also charged with verbally abusing former Chief Postmaster General (West Bengal Circle) Arundhati Ghosh who lodged a complaint with the police in this regard.

While Roy, the husband of a TMC councillor in Bidhan Nagar Municipal Corporation, claimed that the allegations were false, an officer of the Bidhan Nagar East police station said investigations are on.

Salt Lake is also known as Bidhan Nagar.

Ghosh, who was the chief postmaster general of the West Bengal circle between 2014 and 2018, and her brother have been residing in a house built by their late father.

"My elder brother had sold his portion of the property to Roy in 2018 but the transfer was not done as per norms. Now, this person is trying to claim rights to the driveway and garage which belong to me as per the will of my father. He has been pressurising us to sell the entire building to him,” Ghosh claimed.

“On December 26, he came and started abusing me. When I went downstairs, he sexually assaulted me and threatened to murder me," Ghosh told PTI.

Roy denied the allegations and alleged that it was actually Ghosh who had abused and assaulted him.

“She was trying to resist me from using the driveway. It is a common passage," he claimed.

TMC state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said he will look into it.

Roy was booked under IPC sections such as 341(wrongful restrain), 354 (use of criminal force to woman intending to outrage her modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).

West Bengal Commission for Women Chairperson Leena Gangopadhyay told PTI that a suo motu case will be lodged and a report will be sought from the police.