Salt Lake councillor’s cohorts arrested

Police said that Md Nasim and Sindhu Kundu were the closest aides of Chatterjee and used to play a major role in helping the councillor to extort money from people willing to construct their own houses and from real estate developers.

Nasim, a resident of Baguihati area, was arrested from BD Block while Sindhu, a resident of Duttabad, was arrested from near tank number 4. They will be produced before the Bidhannagar Court on Friday.

A police officer said that Nasim is a dealer in building material at BA block and both Sindhu and Nasim had allegedly helped Chatterjee extort money from hapless residents and realty developers. Their main task was to target Salt residents who were undertaking any kind of renovation work on their premises.

Soon after getting the information the duo used to visit the spot with musclemen and intimidate house owners. The duo helped fix the ‘extortion amount’ to be paid to Chatterjee to allow construction work to continue.

Local people had complained to police that the duo received hefty commissions from the councillor in lieu of their services. Police had received several verbal complaints against Nasim and Sindhu earlier. But, apart from one person, no one had lodged a complaint with the police against them fearing a backlash. 

This is the second time that Sindhu was arrested within a span of two months. In May, he was arrested on charges of threatening a resident of Salt Lake resident of dire consequences unless he coughed up the extortion money.

Soon after Chatterjee’s arrest, Salt Lake residents came forward and told cops about the two aides who helped the councillor run this extortion racket in the township. Police are trying to round all members who helped the Salt Lake councillor intimidate local residents.