Police on Monday arrested the BJP’s Parijat Ganguly, 10 days after he led a hate crime here in full public view against Muslim cattle traders, accusing them of being “Bangladeshi jihadis” and assaulting them while they were transporting legitimately purchased cattle with documents.

Police said Ganguly, a state committee member of the BJP’s youth wing, was arrested from a hideout in Dhanbad of neighbouring Jharkhand on Sunday night.

“Parijat Ganguly has been arrested. We will interrogate him in our custody,” said Subir Roy, an assistant commissioner of police in Durgapur.

Ganguly was produced before a court in Durgapur on Monday, which remanded him in police custody for five days.

Sources in the BJP state unit have admitted to the inappropriateness of the incident at a time the party has been going out of its way to convince the Bengal electorate that it does not exclusively represent the hardline Hindutva priorities of the Sangh Parivar.

“Parijat has been given a dressing down from 6 Muralidhar Sen Lane, and will be summarily disowned,” said a source.

Asked about the delay in arresting him, cops said he kept changing his hideouts.

Prior to Ganguly, police had arrested nine men for the crime reminiscent of the Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan brand of saffron politics.

On July 31, Ganguly and his aides had trussed up four Muslim cattle traders of Jemua, beaten them up, made them hold their ears and paraded them in the Gammon Bridge area of Durgapur town. They also released the 20 cows from the mini-truck that these traders had hired, alleging that the men were Bangladeshi jihadis who had smuggled the animals. The barbarism took place barely 200 metres from the local police station, 165km from Calcutta.

Ganguly had sought to brazen it out. “No wrong was committed…. I am ready to court arrest, but won’t allow anyone to smuggle cows here. Those who were smuggling the cows are Bangladeshi jihadis and the smuggling is supported by the police and Trinamool,” he had claimed.

A video clip of the hate crime surfaced on social media, prompting Trinamool leaders to launch protests and lodge a police complaint.

The non-BJP Opposition — the CPM, the Congress and the ISF — had asked why such a shameful crime, commonplace in BJP-ruled states, could take place in Bengal.

On Monday, BJP’s Durgapur Paschim MLA Lakshman Ghorui claimed Ganguly surrendered in court.

“The police were torturing BJP supporters in Durgapur for information on Parijat and so he surrendered in court. The police can take no credit. Cops were torturing our party activists as if they were terrorists,” said Ghorui, who spoke to Ganguly in the court lockup.

Asked if he supported the crime, Ghorui said he did not, but cops at “the behest of Trinamool” were making “a mountain of a molehill”.

“We don’t support what he has done. But is he a terrorist?” asked Ghorui.

Trinamool’s West Burdwan chief and Pandabeswar MLA Narendranath Chakraborty said Ganguly’s arrest was “good news”.