Midnapore, May 8: A probe has begun into a 35-year-old woman’s complaint against a Jhargram local committee member of the CPM, Paresh Das, accusing him of terrorising and trying to grab her home.

Mala Chakraborty had been living with her brother in the two-room house in Jhargram town, 170 km from Calcutta, since her father’s death in 1997. ?After my father ? a former police constable ? died, Sanjoy started a fruit shop. But he suddenly went missing on October 19,? she said.

Her trouble mounted in November. ?My brother’s shop was hardly worth Rs 25,000, but creditors claimed they owed him Rs 8 lakh. When I expressed my inability to pay the huge sum, they advised me to sell the house. I could not accept the proposal. Thereafter, I began to receive threats. There would be knocking on my door at midnight, fire crackers would be lobbed into my room and I would be harassed if I ventured out,? said Mala.

?One night,? she said, ?the electric line to my house was disconnected?.

During the period, she had been trying to eke out a living by giving private tuition to children and manufacturing cement tubs.

Das denied the charges.

Subdivisional police officer Ajay Thakur said the police are probing Sanjoy’s mysterious disappearance and the subsequent incidents. A police picket was posted close to the house after a complaint was lodged in January.

?It was all quiet then. After it was lifted, I began to face the same problems,? Mala said.

The secretary of the CPM local committee, Sibnath Guha, also admitted to having received a complaint against Das. ?I have sought a detailed account of the incidents from Mala Chakraborty. He will not be spared if the allegation is proved true,? Guha said. He conceded that it was wrong to pressure the woman to repay her brother’s loan.

Thakur suggested that the probe has had some success. ?Over the past week, we have not received any complaint of harassment from the woman. We are keeping a watch.?