A former Trinamool Congress councillor of the Raiganj municipality was arrested on Thursday night on charges of trying to forcibly occupy a shop and assaulting the trader and the family.
A court on Friday remanded Abhijit Saha in police custody for one day.
Samir Debnath has been running an electronics shop in Debinagar, Raiganj, for the past 25 years from a rented space.
“When the landowner expressed interest in selling the property, I told him that I would buy the land. But suddenly, Abhijit Saha claimed that he had already bought the property. He, however, could not show me any document,” said Debnath.
He alleged that Saha and his supporters began pressuring him to vacate the shop. As the shop owner did not listen to them, they started threatening him and his family.
Around 9.30pm on October 27 last year, Saha reached the shop with some youths and demanded that Debnath close it down. When Debnath protested, the group allegedly vandalised the shop, overturned furniture and goods, dragged him outside by the collar, threw him to the ground, and assaulted him.
When Purnima, Debnath's wife, tried to intervene, she, too, was assaulted. The attackers continued the rampage for nearly half an hour.
Subsequently, the family filed a complaint at the Raiganj police station. As Saha learned about it, he went on threatening them. But the police took no action.
“Yesterday, he carried out another attack,” said Debnath, who filed a second complaint.
This time, the police acted on the complaint and arrested Saha.
The accused, however, has denied the charges. “He (Debnath) had encroached on a portion of the road in front of his shop. As I asked him to clear the space, he abused and attacked me,” said Saha, who was the councillor of ward 26.
District Trinamool leaders declined to comment on the arrest. “The law will take its own course,” said a party functionary.