Kolkata: The police Friday booked BJP’s West Bengal unit President Dilip Ghosh following a complaint lodged against him by a young woman for making ‘sexually coloured remarks’ and showing ‘murderous intent’.
The police said the case has been initiated against Ghosh under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including threat and intimidation, based on the complaint filed by a second year post-graduate student here earlier in the day.
The woman alleged that she was harassed Thursday by BJP activists taking part in a rally backing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Patuli in the southern outskirts of the city.
“I have filed a complaint of murderous intent and sexual remarks against Dilip Ghosh,” said the girl who also sought police protection.
According to the police and eye-witnesses, the woman was protesting against the new citizenship law as also a possible countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) on one side of the road as the BJP activists led by Ghosh began the rally christened ‘Abhinandan Yatra’.
She was also carrying a poster that read ‘No NRC, No NPR, No CAA’.
Some of the rallyists got angry and tore up the poster, and abused her, while a few were seen shouting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ into her ears, till the police rescued the student.
Later, talking to the media, Ghosh launched a tirade against the woman, saying she was lucky that ‘nothing more was done to her’.
“If they (protesters) come close to our rally, then I’ll say it’s their good fortune that nothing more was done to them. There are lot of baghs (a reference to CAA protest ground Shaheen Bagh in Delhi) and circus where they can protest.
“Why do such people have to come before our workers — to be in the news or to become martyrs? This is very unfortunate. Nobody should do this. We have withstood a lot. We won”t withstand this kind of childish pranks,” he said.
She said she mentioned the entire statement given by Ghosh in her complaint.
IANS
