5 SHG women arrested day after Bakkhali suicides

Kolkata: The day after a 25-year-old youth and his parents died by suicide on Bakkhali beach claiming assault and intimidation of his sister, Diamond Harbour police arrested five women on Monday.
Dabahuti Das, Shampa Das, Suparna Das, Purabi Das and Rita Das were members of the self-help group (SHG) led by Punam, whose brother Abhisek Naskar streamed live on social media the suicide by hanging from branches of tamarisk trees.He had urged the video to be made viral as a means of getting justice for his sister.
The five women had accused Punam of embezzling Rs 9.7 lakh funds of the SHG, and allegedly assaulted and paraded her and her husband, tied with a rope, along the 1.5km stretch from her Sultanpur home in Diamond Harbour to her parents’ Hara home in Kulpi.
All five were booked under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 448 (house trespass) and 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons). “Suparna and Purabi were remanded in police custody and the rest were sent to judicial custody for three days when they were produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate, Diamond Harbour,” said Sudip Chakraborty, a lawyer for the accused.
Punam claimed that she had deposited the entire amount in the bank, which gave her a receipt against the deposit as there was a link failure. Bank officials, however, claimed the receipt was fake.
Diamond Harbour police district superintendent Abhijit Banerjee said: “We have put her (Punam) in safe custody and recorded her version of the incident.”