Baguiati filmmaker stalks woman for 3 yrs, arrested

KOLKATA: A woman has alleged that a short-film director and father of a boy who studied in her daughter’s class stalked her for three years and sought sexual favours after offering her a role in a film. Baguiati police have arrested the accused, identified as Arnab Roy.

“We registered a case of molestation and threat under the relevant sections of the IPC against the accused and we arrested him on Friday night from his residence at Arjunpur after prima facie, we found certain evidences against him,” said a senior investigating officer.

According to police sources, the woman stated in her complaint that Arnab’s son and her daughter used to study together at the same private school at Baguiati. It was through this link that she came to know about Arnab in 2015. Although there was no problem at first, a few months later Arnab allegedly called her up and offered her a role in return of sexual favours.

To avoid Arnab, the woman changed her phone number in 2016. This stopped the flow of calls but a few months later Arnab traced her to her workplace, a hospital at Topsia. The accused continued to make calls on the hospital’s landline. The woman asked her co-workers not to pass on calls from Arnab to her, leading the accused to lodge a complaint that she was not returning him his money that she had allegedly borrowed from him. The case even went to court.

On March 27 this year, things turned for the worst when the accused Arnab threatened the woman’s mother-in-law and tried to character assassinate the survivor. It was then that she lodged FIRs at both Topsia and Baguiati police stations against him. Arbnab though has denied all claims against him stating that he had gone to the woman’s residence to collect the money he had lent her. His family members claimed that it was a plot to ensure the woman never had to return the money loaned from him.