Mob beats up youth, clashes with cops after kidnap rumours

KOLKATA: A 24-year-old man, a resident of Narkeldanga, was saved by timely police intervention on Friday night after rumours of yet another kidnapping led a 300-strong mob to tie him up to a lamp post and assault him with rods and bamboo sticks. The incident was reported from Phoolbagan’s Dompara area that’s located behind a shopping mall. At least four cops, who had gone to save the victim, were also injured.

The incident, the seventh in the city in the past one week, left the victim — identified as Md Asif — with deep injuries on his head. He is being treated at Apollo Hospitals, where doctors said his condition was stable. The injured cops include Phoolbagan police’s antirowdy officer S Chatterjee, who was also admitted to the same hospital. A case in this regard has been initiated by the Phoolbagan police with at least 17 locals being arrested so far.

According to police, Asif — a mentally challenged youth — was asked to go down to UC Banerjee Road wearing a burqa and told that he would be paid for it. Accordingly, Asif reached the spot around 7.27pm on Friday, said a police officer.

Locals have a different version of events, though. “There were at least three persons with burqas. When the locals found them to be roaming suspiciously, they challenged them. On further investigation, the locals came to know that one of them had tried to kidnap a child from the area. The mob then cornered Asif, tied him to the lamp post and started beating him up,” claimed a witness.


Police said that the circumstances leading up to the assault were questionable. “We do not know who asked Asif to visit the spot wearing a burqa. He is a resident of the neighbouring Chamru Singh Lane and should have been a known face in the neighbourhood. Similarly, we found no one who could actually identify the child who was approached by Asif. There are inconsistencies in their claims. In the end, the one common aspect in all these incidents is that a woman clad in burqa is trying to kidnap kids. This is nothing but a planned effort to disturb law and order in the city,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar.

Police said that the control room received a call from an 18-year-student staying in the same area around 7.27pm. When TOI spoke to him, the student said: “I heard from locals that they had got hold of a man who had tried to kidnap a child. When I first saw him, this man was already tied to a lamp post. People were kicking and hitting him. Some had rods and bamboo sticks in their hands. He was bleeding from the face.”

As soon as the local cops, who were on a patrol around Dompara from where the mob had gathered, intervened, all hell broke loose. “The cops were stopped from rescuing him and the ARO, who insisted on saving the man, was physically assaulted. Additional force from divisional mobile patrol and the high radio frequency squad (HRFS) II patrol teams helped bring the situation under control. If the patrol team was late, things could have been worse,” said an officer.

Doctors said the victim — admitted at the ICU — has scalp injuries. “His CT scan has not revealed any internal injuries yet. He has a fracture on his arm. But he is stable and breathing on his own,” said a doctor.

Sajjan Singh, a local resident, alleged police high-handedness while the arrests were being carried out on Saturday. “The cops just barged into every house and picked up the male adults. They were rude and never stopped to check footage if indeed they were part of the mob,” claimed Singh.

The fresh arrests — 17 — now take the total number of arrests in such cases to 25. This is one of the highest number of arrests in Kolkata in such a case.