TMC legislator Soham Chakraborty granted anticipatory bail in assault case

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator and Bengali movie actor Soham Chakraborty, accused of assaulting a restaurant owner at New Town on the eastern outskirts of Kolkata on June 7, was granted anticipatory bail by the Barasat court in North 24 Parganas district on Thursday in the case registered by the Techno City police station, Alok Samajpati, the actor’s lawyer, said.

“Chakraborty was booked under bailable sections. The court granted him bail against a personal bond of Rs.2000,” Samajpati told the media outside the court. 

Chakraborty moved the Barasat court a day after Anisul Alam, the restaurant owner, filed a petition before the bench of justice Amrita Sinha at the Calcutta high court, stating that he was receiving threats for filing the complaint but police were not taking any action. Alam’s petition is likely to come up for a hearing on Friday. 

No police officer commented on Alam’s petition. Meanwhile, Chakraborty triggered a row among lawyers at the Barasat court on Thursday by sitting at the office of the public prosecutor till his petition came up for hearing.

“How can an accused in a case filed by the state meet the public prosecutor and sit in his office? This puts a question mark on the law department”, district bar association president Shibaprasad Mukherjee said.

Speaking to the media, public prosecutor Shantamay Basu, said that he and Chakraborty have known each other for a long time. “I am also a TMC district leader. Soham is an MLA from my party. I have known him for a long time. I did not talk to him as the public prosecutor”. 

The dispute arose between the two sides over parking the cars of the TMC MLA and his aides in front of the restaurant in the New Town area near the state capital.

Chakraborty, the legislator from East Midnapore district’s Chandipur, allegedly grabbed Alam by the collar and punched him in the face during a dispute over the restaurant owner’s objection to the actor’s car being parked outside the main entrance to the dining area. Alam claimed that he asked Chakraborty’s security personnel to move the vehicle to the parking lot. 

The sequence of events was recorded on multiple security cameras installed at the establishment. The employees claimed that they, too, were roughed up by Chakraborty’s associates.

The footage was collected by the police and a case was registered on the basis of charges pressed by Alam who denied Chakraborty’s allegation that he started the brawl and badmouthed senior TMC leaders.

Chakraborty, however, apologised before the media within 12 hours of the incident, saying he lost his cool and thrashed Alam during a verbal exchange.

Neither Chakraborty nor Alam could be contacted on Thursday.

“The case was registered on the basis of Alam’s complaint and an investigation is on,” an officer from the Bidhan Nagar police commissionerate said on condition of anonymity.