DIG in dock for ‘torturing’ help

Bengal DGP Sujit Kumar Sarkar confirmed that a departmental inquiry has been ordered. “I am not sure who will conduct the probe,but it will be a senior officer,” he said.

Police sources said IG (Organisation) Suman Bala has been asked to conduct the inquiry. The IG visited Janata at the Don Bosco’s home in Howrah,where she has been shifted after she refused to return to either Bag’s or her father Banshi’s residence.

Sources said Bala met Janata and her father and questioned them at length. Banshi Middya is understood to have told the IG that Janata had complained to him several times about the torture she faced at Bag’s home,but also added that Bags always denied the allegations. After his wife’s death,Banshi,a resident of Jhargram in West Midnapore,left his daughter to work at Bag’s residence and remarried. Police said Janata did not want to stay with her stepmother.

After the child was spotted bleeding by neighbours,the matter attained a political hue with the Trinamool Congress taking up the cause. Locals and Trinamool supporters led by MP Ambika Banerjee gheraoed Bag’s residence on Saturday demanding his arrest,forcing Bag to visit the Nazirgunge police station where a complaint was registered. Locals continued to gherao the police station demanding his arrest till late night.

According to the police,the child told them that she was beaten up over petty issues by Bag and his wife. “She alleged that she was beaten till late on Friday night and could not sleep. We have sent her to the Don Bosco’s home in Howrah. She is getting medical care,” a police officer said.

Banerjee termed the thrashing of the child inhuman. “If this is true,then harsh punishment should be given to the DIG. How can anyone be so cruel to a child?” he said. Despite repeated efforts,Bag could not be contacted.