KOLKATA:
Vinit Agarwal, a 46-year-old resident of Salt Lake’s GD block who was arrested on charges of assaulting civic workers on dengue drive on Monday, suffers from
bipolar disorder, a mental condition in which a person experiences sudden and extreme mood swings.
Agarwal was produced at the
Bidhannagar ACJM court on Tuesday and released on bail. Defence lawyer Soumyajit Raha said that the charge against him of assaulting a public servant did not stand as the civic worker was a casual employee and not in the civic body’s payroll.
Agarwal’s wife Tripti told TOI on Tuesday that her husband was undergoing psychiatric treatment. “He suffers from bipolar disorder as prescribed by the doctor. He occasionally gets very excited out of provocation. He may have uttered a few foul words unintentionally due to his mental condition but he did not assault anyone,” she said.
Dr Pramod Sureka, under whom Agarwal is undergoing treatment, confirmed that Agarwal was suffering from bipolar disorder. “He is under treatment for quite a few years now. At times he gets very excited, and sometimes he becomes very depressed. What happened on Monday with him was very unfortunate,” he said.
Bidhananagar civic authorities, however, said that they often get complaints from civic workers doing door-todoor visits that a section of residents do not cooperate and even misbehaves with them. “We do get such complaints of some residents misbehaving with our health staff. The civic workers are working to prevent any outbreak of dengue,” said Bidhannagar Corporation MMIC (health) Pranay Roy.
Representative Image
