Police in Kolkata have arrested three people after two teenage boys and the father of one of them were allegedly assaulted, forced to strip and paraded naked along a residential lane near Behala on Sunday night. The incident has triggered an investigation into vigilante violence, unlawful confinement and the alleged use of a firearm to threaten the victims.
The arrested people are the parents and maternal uncle of a 13-year-old girl whom the younger boy had allegedly been caught kissing, according to the report. The victims were identified as an 18-year-old, his 19-year-old friend and the younger boy’s father. Videos circulating after the incident show three men being forced to remove their clothes and walk along a public road while people filmed them.
Additional commissioner of police (crime) Kunal Agarwal said the younger boy had gone to meet the girl near Khalpar Math on Sunday evening with a friend. According to the complaint lodged by the boy’s father, the boy allegedly kissed the girl while they were talking. A friend of the girl’s maternal uncle reportedly informed her father and uncle after witnessing the interaction.
The complaint alleges that the two men took the boys to a godown in Khudirampally, assaulted them and forced the younger boy to call his father. The girl’s uncle allegedly summoned three or four associates. When the father arrived, he too was allegedly assaulted. The three victims were then threatened with a gun and forced to walk naked for about 50 metres along the lane outside the girl’s home.
The younger boy later told reporters that the girl’s maternal uncle had allegedly presented his father with three options, including killing him or facing a rape case, before the family accepted the public humiliation as a way to save his life. The allegation has not been independently established. Police said an Arms Act charge had been added to the case, but no firearm had been recovered as of Monday night.
The accused face charges including attempt to murder, voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, wrongful confinement, defamation, criminal intimidation, kidnapping and unlawful possession of arms. Police are also looking for people who may have facilitated the alleged assault or filmed the victims. Investigators are collecting CCTV footage and identifying local witnesses.
Residents who witnessed the alleged parade intervened and later turned against the girl’s family, whose house was attacked, according to local accounts. A team from Sarsuna police station searched the house and the godown before locating the girl’s father inside the home. The three victims underwent medical examinations on Monday.
The incident has also prompted allegations about the family’s local influence, which a former Trinamool Congress councillor named in connection with those claims denied. A retired police officer told The Telegraph that the episode reflected a growing tendency to take the law into one’s own hands and a lack of trust in the administration. Police said their investigation would continue through CCTV examination, witness identification and efforts to trace other participants.
