A 71-year-old man who was arrested for allegedly raising the “desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro... (shoot the traitors)” slogan is known as a “soft-spoken” person in his neighbourhood.

A relative said Dhruba Basu, who was arrested along with Surendra Kumar Tiwari and Pankaj Prasad, had not married because he wanted to dedicate his life to the RSS.

The retired state government official, who has been granted bail, lives with his lawyer nephew on Panchanantala Road, in Haridevpur.

When Metro tried to locate Basu’s home on Monday afternoon, some residents identified him immediately. “Mama-bhagne ek-sathe thake. Dada BJP koren toh? (Maternal uncle and nephew live together. The elder one is an active BJP supporter, isn’t he?) He is soft-spoken,” a neighbour said, unaware of the arrest.

Dhruba Bose

A relative of Basu, who stays in a building a few blocks away from his, said the elderly man had been a “hardcore RSS supporter” since his youth and had not married to follow the organisation’s ideals.

“He is very passionate about his allegiance to the party. He would attend all meetings. He also went to the Prime Minister’s rally. We never had any differences over our (political) choices. I had voted for another party till very recently,” the relative told this newspaper.

Is the family sorry for what Basu had allegedly said?

“Maybe when we meet face to face, we will tell him that if what he is believed to have said is true, he should not have (said such a thing),” the relative said.

The house has stickers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

The cops looking for Basu had first knocked on the relatives’s door around 4.30am. They were told that Basu lived in another house in the neighbourhood.

The police team went to the second address and asked Basu to accompany them. He apparently sought a few minutes to freshen up.

“He was not nervous, nor did he say anything in his defence. He just told his nephew (who is a lawyer) to find out what the case was about. He was very composed,” the relative said.

The Bankshal court granted him bail citing his age.

The neighbours this newspaper spoke to said they could not come to think that Basu had said something like this. One of them said: “Dada toh khub bhalo manush (he is a very good human being).”