Teacher arrested for SDO assault

KOUSIK SEN, TT, May 28, 2018, Raiganj: Another schoolteacher has been arrested on charges of assaulting the SDO in Raiganj during a demonstration organised to protest the death of a teacher on May 16.

Sanjit Das, a resident of Ashokpally area here, is the third teacher to be arrested in connection with the case.

"We have arrested Das because of his involvement in the attack organised on the SDO during a road blockade and demonstration on May 16," said a police officer.

On May 16, many government employees - most of them schoolteachers - had assembled at Ghori More here to protest the death of Raj Kumar Roy, a schoolteacher who went missing while on poll duty and was later found dead near a rail track on Raiganj's outskirts. As T.N. Sherpa, the SDO, went to the spot to speak with the demonstrators, he was assaulted. Later, Sherpa had lodged a police complaint.

Das, arrested on Saturday night, was produced in a court on Sunday and remanded one day's police custody, the officer said.

Meanwhile, other schoolteachers and some local residents, who had been demanding release of their arrested colleagues and a complete probe of Roy's death, have planned a citizens' convention in the town on Monday. "We will have prominent lawyer (and CPM leader) Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya at the convention. He will appear before the court on behalf of the teachers who have been arrested," said one of the organisers.

The CID is probing Roy's case.