Actress Kanchana Moitra molested, two held

Kolkata: Two youth were arrested in connection with the incident in which Tollywood actress Kanchana Moitra was molested and threatened with dire consequences when she was returning home on Monday late night.

Police said the accused Sankar Dauli (25) and Surajit Panda (25) were arrested from Haridevpur within a few hours after the complaint was lodged by the actress. Both of them are residents of Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road at Haridevpur in South Kolkata.

On the basis of the complaint of the actress, a case had been initiated in Behala Police Station under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for wrongful restraint (341 IPC), voluntarily causing hurt (323 IPC) assault or criminal force to woman with

intent to outrage her modesty (354 IPC) and criminal intimidation (506 IPC).

The actress lodged the complaint alleging that someone pelted a stone at her car at the crossing of Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road and BL Saha Road (commonly known as Siriti More) when she was returning home after shooting.

Two youth approached her when the actress and her driver, Gour, got down from the car to find what went wrong. She alleged that the youth were in an inebriated state and they started misbehaving with her.

They claimed that they would have got killed as the car had brushed passed them. It led to an altercation as they driver of the car asked them not to make false claims. The youth suddenly took the key from the car and started running in a bid to harass the actress.

Finding no way out, Moitra and her driver started chasing them. They found the youth standing at a distance and they asked the actress to slap the driver ten times. By that time, some more youth, who were also in an inebriated state, gathered there and asked Kanchana and her driver to squat 40 times to get back the keys. They even manhandled the driver and pushed the actress.

Despite being harassed, the actress continued requesting them to return the keys of her car. But her requests fell on deaf ears and they even started threatening her with dire consequences.

The actress also claimed that some people were standing in the area. But no one came forward to help her.

The situation would have turned further worse if the on-duty policemen, who were patrolling the area, had not reached the spot on time.

Finding the policemen approaching them, some of the accused managed to flee while two of them were arrested.