Ask For Help and get Slapped !! This is Bengal !!! ooops PaschimBanga.

The Telegraph

12th September' 2011

Kolkata

Slap for seeking cop’s help

A STAFF REPORTER

Ask for assistance from a Calcutta cop and you could get the cold shoulder, demand and you might get a slap.

A 37-year-old man seeking police intervention after a pickup van rammed into his car from behind on Friday night was allegedly assaulted by a cop in plainclothes and later advised by a seemingly more sympathetic officer to “privately sort it out” with the accused. 

Pharmaceutical company executive Rajib Saha, 37, wife Kakoli, five-and-half year old son Abhinandan and a friend were headed for a hotel off the EM Bypass in a silver-coloured Maruti 800 around 11pm when they were stopped by a man in red T-shirt and black trousers on Dhakuria bridge.

 

Rajib immediately got off his car to complain to the policemen gathered on the bridge about the damage to the Maruti 800, but they allegedly didn’t even turn to look at him. “Irritated as I was, I wondered aloud whether it wasn’t the police’s duty to give a citizen in distress a hearing. A man in a checked shirt suddenly grabbed me by the collar and started pushing and slapping me. He was a tall, stout and foul-mouthed man in his forties,” he said.

The man then allegedly dragged Rajib to the other flank of the bridge and ordered him to get into his car and leave. “Chol, bero ekhan theke…bhir baras na (Come on, get out of here now… don’t create a scene),” he said.

Kakoli, who had by then run to her husband’s side, pleaded with an officer in uniform to intervene. “Toke help korbo keno? Tui police na VIP? Chup-chaap chole ja. (Why should I help you? Who are you — police or VIP? Quietly leave),” ordered the officer, whose uniform badge bore the name “Surojit Bhattacharjee”.

According to Rajib, the group included the man in the checked shirt as well the one who had stopped his car. “I was now convinced that the duo were cops in plainclothes. The moment they set foot in the police station, they started abusing us,” he alleged.

“Tora aabar ekhane-o eshechis? Aamar naam-e complain korbi bhebechis? Ja khushi kor, aamar transfer ba suspension hobe! Kintu toke aami chharbo na (You have come here, too? You are planning to lodge a complaint against me? Do what you want. I will be transferred or suspended at the most. But I won’t spare you),” the man in the checked shirt allegedly said, glaring at Kakoli.

(only excerpts)