Sub-inspector Patil at the Raiganj district hospital on Wednesday. Picture by Nantu Dey

Raiganj, Dec. 3: Police and the BSF combed Vatol last night but failed to track down the youth who had eluded them after inciting a mob which was made to believe that the law-enforcers were traffickers in human organs.

The youth, Sagar, alias Mohammad Samiul, is being sought by Maharashtra police for decamping with nearly Rs 25 lakh from the office of a construction company in Kalyan, Thane.

Two of Sagar’s brothers, Mohammad Sahin and Mohammad Aslam, were detained last night. “On hearing their brother’s call for help, the two had attacked the policemen in mufti,” said the officer in charge of Raiganj police station, Sujit Ghosh.

The detained youths told the police that Sagar was with them after the incident, but left home at night. “There is a strong possibility that he has crossed into Bangladesh as the border is barely a kilometre from Tajpur,” Ghosh said.

Yesterday, a stone-throwing mob had left sub-inspector A.S. Patil and constable Vilas Patel, who had come in search of Sagar from Maharashtra, badly injured with the former suffering a fracture on his left arm. The in-charge of the Vatol police camp, W.B. Lama, was also with the visiting team when the accused was spotted at Tajpur, 2km from Vatol, and the mob came to his rescue and helped him flee.

The police visited Sagar’s home today and got “vital clues” about the youth said to be about 25 years old.

Ghosh said when the combing operation began yesterday, it was already dark. “We went to the Tajpur area with Lama, who had spotted the youth, but all the shops had shut down and house-to-house searches revealed that only the women, children and the elderly were present. However, we questioned some of them and got hold of the youth’s address in Tajpur,” Ghosh said.

Mohammad Faizuddin told the police that his son Samiul had several aliases like Sagar and Ashok and unknown men often came looking for him using those names. “For the past few years, the youth used to be away from home for three to four months at a stretch and returned to pay his father Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 and disappear again.” Ghosh said.

The injured policemen from Maharashtra were released from the district hospital last night and are currently staying in a hotel in Raiganj. “We are staying here for a few more days but we not going to look for the accused. That is being done by the local police. Our commissioner of police, Thane, Anil P. Dhere, has asked us to stay here till further orders,” sub-inspector Patil said.