Burdwan, Jan. 22: Residents of Komal Sayer under Burdwan police station area beat up a doctorate student from Calcutta when he turned up at a religious meeting, almost a year after his family was boycotted for lodging a case against some CPM members.

Uzir Hossian, a PhD student with the Chittaranjan Cancer Research Institute, said CPM leaders allegedly beat him up when he came to attend a religious meeting yesterday and forced him to leave.

A member of the Forward Bloc Yuba League, Sheikh Nazir Hossain, has lodged a complaint with Burdwan police on behalf of the family, which has decided to turn to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for help.

Burdwan superintendent of police Neeraj Singh said he has asked his men to inquire into the incident.

The controversy centres round two-and-a-half kottahs of land.

Badrul Alam, an English teacher at a local high school, and husband Ismat Ara, a primary school teacher, had bought the plot in Komal Sayer. This invited the wrath of a relative of a CPM leader who was eyeing the land.

The teacher ? the student?s uncle ? resisted efforts to grab the land. But he was later taken to a local club and reportedly thrashed.

The club members also forced him to give a written statement that he was not beaten up and would be responsible if there is any unrest in the locality.

Badrul?s brother, Sheikh Barek Ahmed, claimed that the local police had refused to even accept a complaint. ?So, he was forced to move the court as a last resort,? said Ahmed, an employee of Burdwan Medical College?s anatomy department.

The teacher?s petition before the Burdwan district court named, among others, the secretary of the Golapbagh branch of the CPM, Sheikh Moinuddin, and 14 club members.

But the family?s trauma did not end with the registering of a case and it has been forced to leave the place.

The local ward councillor in Burdwan town and member of the CPM?s Golapbagh unit, Harun Ul Rashid, said today that the two parties have been called for a discussion early next week. ?If no solution is arrived at, the law will take its own course. But we have already warned our party workers,? he said.

Nazir Hossain, Badrul?s nephew and a member of the Yuba League, said his family had to undergo such torment for having dared to challenge the CPM in Burdwan. ?We have been made the victim of nasty politics. CPM members have beaten us up,? he said.