Friend’s speed rescue

TT, Alipurduar, Oct. 28: A bike-riding youth who was shot along with his girlfriend who was the pillion raced to a hospital 15km away for treatment.

The girl, 21-year-old college student Angela Biswas, is stable, doctors at Alipurduar district hospital said. They said the bullet that entered Angela’s left arm got lodged in the left side of her belly.

Liton Chaki, 28, who is to marry Anagela in November, is critical and has been taken to a Siliguri hospital.

Police officers said Liton, who lives in Alipurduar’s Aurobinda Nagar, works in a private BEd college. Angela is a BA final-year student.

Police suspect the case could be of snatching on NH31C. No one has been arrested.

Till late this evening, Liton’s surgery had not started to treat his stomach injury.

Doctors at the Alipurduar hospital said Angela could be operated upon tonight.

From her hospital bed, Angela spoke about the shooting and the ride down the highway and through Alipurduar town that saved her life.

Angela said the couple were returning to Alipurduar town around 4pm today down NH31C when a man, his face covered with cloth, came on the road.  She said he came in front of the bike, forcing Liton to halt. Then the man fired at her boyfriend.

Angela said before she could figure out what had happened, the man fired at her. “Near the Uttar Poro forest, one person who had covered his face with a black cloth, stopped the bike. The man fired at Liton and then fired at me.”

She said while they were speeding away from the spot, Angela saw four to five men waiting at a distance.

Inspector in-charge Debashish Chakraborty of Aliurduar police station said he suspected “it might be a case of snatching”.