Seven persons arrested for vandalism on Panditya Road

Police arrested seven persons on Monday in connection with the incident in which a mob vandalised a residential complex and damaged 75 cars on Panditya Road in south Kolkata, following a road accident in which a 24-year-old man was killed.

On Sunday, three youth, including the victim Abhijit Pandey, from a locality situated close to Fort Oasis complex were returning from SSKM Hospital, where one of their neighbours was admitted after suffering from dengue. The accident took place as Pandey – who was on a scooty with the other two youth – took a right turn near Paramount Nursing Home on Hazra Road and was hit by the speeding Mercedes car.

Policemen patrolling the area reached the spot and took the three to hospital with the help of local people. Pandey was declared brought dead, while his friends Mithilesh Yadav (23) and Rambarat Yadav (22) received severe injuries. The occupants of the Mercedes had fled immediately after the accident.

Police suspect that Varun Maheshwari, the son of a business man, was in the car and his friend Rebecca was behind the steering wheel. Police came to know from different sources that Rebecca forced Varun to let her drive the car.

Despite identifying the owner of the offending car, police are yet to arrest its driver and the occupants of the car, when it had hit the scooty on which the victim Pandey was travelling. As a result, the charge of probing into the accident has been handed over to the Detective Department of the city police. Initially, the Fatal Squad Traffic Police (FSTP) was probing into it.

Two separate cases were lodged in connection with the incident. The first case was lodged in connection with the accident with Tollygunge police station, which was taken up by FSTP and finally the Detective Department. The second case was lodged with Lake police station in connection with the vandalism at Fort Oasis complex.

In connection with the vandalism incident, police arrested seven persons including Debashis Ash (32), Biplab Singh (30), Baniya Chowdhury (26), Sanu Gupta (24), Bunti Gupta (19), Adhir Sarkar (60) and Monish Shaw (23). All seven were remanded in the custody of the police for two days after being produced before the court Monday afternoon.

The four youth, who were arrested on Sunday on charges of blocking the road to protest against the accident, were remanded in judicial custody for two days.

It may be mentioned that the residents of Fort Oasis had claimed on Sunday that the early morning accident cannot be the only reason behind the attack on their residential complex. According to a police officer, the investigating officers are also trying to find out whether there was any ulterior motive behind the attack.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Adhir Sarkar, who has been arrested in this connection, had instigated the vandalism. Like other neighbours, Sarkar was also aggrieved over the death of Abhijit Pandey.

However, police suspect that long time association of people like Sarkar with the area that underwent a rapid change with high-rises coming up on plots, where once there were engineering factories, could have been working in back of the mind of such people and the vandalism was a result of the outburst of the pent up anger.

The Mercedes car would be send for forensic test and the police were going through footages of surveillance cameras to identify the driver.