A former ration dealer walked into the office of the Cooch Behar district food controller and splashed acid on him on Thursday afternoon to avenge an old legal setback.

Food controller Dawa Wangel Lama suffered serious burn injuries on his cheek and is under treatment now at the Cooch Behar Government Medical College & Hospital.

Police arrested the attacker, Ashok Kumar Bansal, 60. Initial probe revealed Bansal, in the late 1980s, was a ration shop owner in Binnaguri of Jalpaiguri, and Lama the sub-controller of food in the district. Bansal then had run into problems with the state food and supplies department.

Sources said that on Thursday Lama was working in his chamber when Bansal, who is from Hissar in Haryana, came to meet him. As Bansal entered Lama’s chamber, he asked the latter if he was “Mr Lama”. When the official nodded, Bansal immediately splashed acid on him and tried to escape.

Lama raised an alert, prompting other employees to rush and intercept Bansal. A police team led by Soumyajit Roy, the inspector-in-charge of Kotwali police station, reached the spot and took Bansal into custody.

Lama was rushed to the CGMCH.

A police officer said that Bansal, as a ration dealer back in the 1980s, had filed a case against the state food and supplies department at Calcutta High Court. He lost the case against the department and filed another case in Punjab & Haryana High Court. He lost again. As the district food controller, who was a sub-controller of food then, was instrumental in getting the cases quashed, Lama became revengeful against the officer and took this step, the police officer added.