A police complaint was lodged in March about an alleged assault in a councillor’s office and an alleged illegal construction, but no officer from Baguiati police station apparently took the trouble of visiting the complainants’ house and talking to them in the past six months.
The complainants — a mother and her daughter — were forced to touch the councillor’s feet and apologise for having lodged a complaint against illegal construction last year, they have said.
The police, the complainants said on Thursday, also advised them to stay away and not invite trouble by taking on a councillor of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
“We lodged a police complaint following the advice of the municipal commissioner of the BMC. Subsequently, we were made to understand by the police that since a political party was involved, the officers could do little,” the 24-year-old daughter said.
She said they were forced to touch councillor Asutosh Nandi’s feet at his office and apologise on March 3 for daring to speak up against the “illegal construction”.
The daughter said that five days after the alleged incident at Nandi’s office, they lodged the complaint with Baguiati police station saying how they were summoned to the councillor’s office and harassed, assaulted and abused.
“Since then, no one from the police station turned up to investigate the allegations. The then officer-in-charge told me not to get involved in all this,” the daughter said.
“He said he was more caught up with a murder case and told me that our complaint was not as serious as that of a murder. Instead, he tried to pacify me saying if anything happened to me, he would look into it.”
The woman’s mother said she had to seek psychiatric help for her traumatised daughter after the alleged assault.
“My daughter is in shock. You see how she trembles when she speaks about it. The entire incident has scarred her mentally, more than causing any physical injuries,” said the woman in her fifties.
Speaking to The Telegraph late on Wednesday evening, Nandi, the councillor of Ward 17 of the BMC, denied the allegations against him.
His boss, mayor Krishna Chakraborty, said on Thursday: “None of the complaints reached my office. I have started an inquiry to find out what happened.”
Bidhannagar police commissioner Gaurav Sharma told this newspaper on Thursday that he had asked the deputy commissioner of the airport zone to start an inquiry and send him a report “on an urgent basis”.
“I have asked the deputy commissioner of the airport zone to immediately start an inquiry,” Sharma told this newspaper.
The family had lodged multiple complaints with various officials, including the mayor and the commissioner of the BMC, about the allegedly illegal construction.
The BMC had on November 11, 2022, issued a stop-work notice to the promoters who were constructing the five-storey building, a civic official said.
But that order was not apparently complied with. A BMC official said they had served a demolition notice on the promoters. “The building plan that was submitted to us was not genuine. The executive engineer (demolition) will take steps to lodge a complaint of forgery,” the official said.
Senior officers of Kolkata police said if a complaint about unauthorised construction is lodged, it is the duty of an officer to immediately reach the area, talk to the complainant and others in the locality and inform his senior.