The accused, a resident of Hooghly’s Baidyabati, was arrested on Saturday. (Representational)
Kolkata Police on Saturday arrested a “mentally ill” man after a video of him masturbating in a public bus was posted by a girl on social media. The accused, later identified as Asit Ray, is a hawker by profession and was arrested by Shyampukur Police, officials said.
The girl, who shared her experience and the video on Kolkata Police’s official Facebook page, said the incident took place when she was travelling from Hedua in North Kolkata on bus number 30B/1 WB25C6638. In the video, the girl said, the man appeared to be aware of the fact that he was being recorded. He can be seen laughing while sitting in the back seat. The girl also alleged that the same man had indulged in a similar activity two weeks ago.
“My friend and I were returning from Hedua on a bus when we saw a middle-aged man misbehaving with us. When we alerted the conductor, he said there was nothing he could do as no one knows what goes through a person’s mind. I screamed and requested my co-passengers to catch him but no one came forward to help us. Just about 15 days ago, a similar incident had taken place and that time, I did not protest,” the FB post, which was written in Bengali and shared by nearly 24,000 people so far, said.
Responding to the victim’s post, Kolkata Police said, “We don’t need any written complaint. The videos posted on our Facebook page is enough for us. We have already lodged a case. We are trying to track down the culprit.”
Later in the day, the officials made another post and claimed that the accused, who was “mentally ill”, was arrested by Shyampukur Police.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) Supratim Sarkar had earlier told The Indian Express that a case had been registered following the girl’s post and that police had swung into action to nab the accused.