A police officer’s daughter and her four male friends, all heavily drunk, were arrested by the Gariahat police in Kolkata for allegedly slapping a taxi driver for refusing to take them and then thrashing an on-duty police officer for his intervention in the matter early on Sunday.
Arpita Bhattacharya, 25, the prime accused, was earlier only “detained’ by the police as her father is an officer of inspector-rank posted at the Kolkata Armed Police.
Accompanied by her four friends — Sumit Roy Chaudhury, Prasenjit Dasgupta, Uddalok Mitra and Shantanu Banerjee — all aged between 25 and 30 years, she came out of a night-club near the Ballygunge railway station, following a party there. At around 12.15 am, they stopped a taxi and asked the driver to take them to Behala. But the driver, Arup Das, refused after finding them in a drunken state. Soon a brawl broke out. Mr Das alleged that in a fit of rage, Arpita slapped him. Her friends also joined her.
Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of the Gariahat police station Sukhen Mullick rushed to the spot with his colleague Mrinal Bandopadhyay. Sources disclosed that Arpita thrashed Mr Mullick and manhandled Mr Bandopadhyay. Getting information, a police team reached the spot. The five accused were taken to the police station.
During questioning, Arpita flaunted her “connection” and identified herself as the daughter of an inspector of the seventh battalion of the Kolkata Armed Police, an officer said. She also lodged a complaint of taxi refusal with the police. Cross-checking her background, the police went soft on her and just detained her, sources added.
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Row over Dirty Picture on TV
Mumbai/New Delhi, April 22: The much-anticipated television premiere of Vidya Balan-starrer The Dirty Picture was stalled at the last moment on Sunday, despite 59 cuts in the film to make it suitable for television viewing. While film’s director Milan Luthria is shocked and disappointed, filmmaker Karan Johar branded it hypocrisy. The government moved quickly to stall the screening of film by an entertainment television channel, ostensibly due to its “adult” content, and asked the channel to telecast it late in the night after prime time.
Information and broadcasting ministry officials in New Delhi said that they have sent a letter to Sony TV not to telecast the movie during prime time on Sunday. “The channel has been told to screen the movie only after 11 pm,” they said to a query in this regard. This directive from the ministry left Luthria fuming, even as the Mumbai film industry reacted angrily to the development. “I am shocked and disappointed that this decision was taken at the last moment. For the last two months we have been working on this and as per the rule few scenes had to be cut to get the U/A certificate. Don’t harass us like this,” Luthria said. — IANS