Kolkata: Masked men vandalize cars in Tollygunge after liquor protest

KOLKATA: Three masked men with gamchhas draped over their face used the cover of the night to smash the windscreens and rear windows of four cars parked on Graham’s Lane near

Tollygunge

in the early hours of Wednesday. The car owners are all members of Graham’s Lane Welfare & Cultural Society. Police have arrested the three accused whose vandalism was caught on CCTV.

Locals alleged the attack was retaliatory in nature, following a complaint filed at

Jadavpur

PS by locals against two youths from a nearby slum. The damaged cars belong to D Palan, Kakoli Naha and Kaushik Nandy.

“We have arrested Biplab Saha, Subodh Ghosh and Subhankar Indu alias Pacha, all residents of nearby areas, for the attack in Graham’s Lane,” said acting DC (south suburban) Biswajit Ghosh.

“These young men have been fomenting trouble in the locality for the past year-and-a-half. They would assemble in groups in front of our house, openly drink alcohol and harass people. This would continue till late at night. We have been suffering this all through the lockdown. Even though there is a night curfew at present, they don’t care. We finally decided to report the matter to police after they violated the complete

lockdown

on Saturday. This is why they chose another lockdown day to hit back,” said the owner of one of the damaged cars.

Ashok Ghosh, another local, claimed the youths even switched off the street lights. “After we lodged a written complaint, police had come to check. We handed them evidence in the form of CCTV footage. On Wednesday morning, we found the cars damaged. Initially clueless, we checked the CCTV footage and found that the youths had come here at night and committed the crime,” he said.

The footage shows two youths (out of three) moving towards the parked cars well past midnight. One of them hurls bricks into the car’s windscreen, smashing it, before fleeing. “We have drawn up a case in this regard and are investigating all angles,” said an officer.

Locals also said the youths posed a health hazard in the neighbourhood by ignoring social distancing norms and moving about without masks.