A mother and son accused of mentally torturing and physically abusing a young woman from Sodepur had posted 11 music videos since they launched their entertainment channel on social media in March 2021, which is less than three a year,
investigators from Howrah police said.
Senior officers said the finding about the number of videos posted was vital towards understanding how the mother and son ran their business and whether the women who joined their event management company were allegedly forced into other dubious activities.
“Aryan Khan and his mother Sweta’s source of income is a key component of the investigation because the victim has alleged that she was asked to participate in some dubious activities, which she refused to and was beaten up severely for the defiance,” a senior officer of the Howrah commissionerate said.
The mother and son are yet to be traced.
“We are trying to identify the person who used to handle the accounts of the so-called event management company and trace the bank accounts of the mother and son to understand their financial status,” said the officer.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Aryan and Sweta ran a social media channel — Isara Entertainment — where girls were made to dance in music videos. The two would allegedly tap prospective young women to join their event management company, make them participate in shoots for music videos and eventually force them into dubious activities, the probe revealed.
Some of Sweta’s neighbours have told investigators that young women would arrive at her Domjur house at night in groups, but there was no way one would get a whiff of what happened inside because the entire building was heavily covered with CCTVs.
Sweta would barely interact with neighbours. Sweta’s two brothers lived close by, said the neighbours.
The woman from Sodepur managed to run away from the house and return home on the morning of June 6. She alleged that she was beaten up with iron rods, a chopper and a grinding stone while in the custody of the mother and the son.
“They kept me locked up in an apartment in Bankrabazar near Ansari Daktarkhana. The woman, Sweta, used to beat me mostly because I couldn’t perform household chores properly,” the woman said. “There is not a point in my body where I was not hit while in their custody,” she said.
Some of Sweta’s neighbours alleged that no one dared to raise a voice against her or question her activities with her son. Sweta would file false complaints against anyone who would protest against her at the local Domjur police station, they alleged.
The lid came off when the young woman’s parents complained to Khardah police station, alleging that Aryan and his mother mentally and physically abused their daughter for almost five months.
An FIR was drawn up based on the parents’ complaint and subsequently forwarded to the Howrah Police Commissionerate, triggering a probe. Officers said the mobile phones of the mother and son have remained switched off since Saturday, when they appeared to have managed to move out of Domjur.