Matiur (right) after being arrested by Englishbazar police in Malda. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Jan. 12: A woman thrashed a youth with her slippers who had been persistently taking pictures of her daughter on a mobile phone while they were out shopping in town this afternoon.

The woman and her daughter had come from a village, 40km from here, in a hired car. The youth has been arrested.

Around 3pm, the woman suddenly charged at the youth with her slipper and started beating him up at the busy Phoara More. People, stunned at the incident, rushed to the spot. Employees from the Main Post Office also came out on hearing the commotion. While the crowd thrashed the youth, the mother snatched the mobile phone from his hands.

“This man was taking my daughter’s photographs. We have never seen him before and have no idea who he is, and that is why I took away the phone from him,” she said.

The woman from Shobhanagar said she had come for shopping along with her sister and niece. The youth had been taking the photographs of the two young girls. Her daughter is a student of Class VIII and husband is an employee of the state fire services department and currently posted in Siliguri. “I knew that these unscrupulous people in town use their mobiles to take pictures of young women and start troubling them. So I was keeping a sharp watch and caught this person red-handed.”

While the commotion was on, officials from Englishbazar police station came to the spot and arrested the youth.

The 20-year-old has been identified as Matiur Rehman. “His family owns a garment shop in Raipur village and he had come to town to pick up stocks. The women were having fruit juice at Phoara More. Matiur was also at the shop and drinking juice. He then began taking pictures of the girls. When the women boarded the car, he went up boldly and continued clicking. It was then the mother caught him,” said Bipul Majumdar, the inspector-in-charge of the Englishbazar police station.

Matiur, however, claimed that he did not have any bad intentions. “I was clicking as I liked the looks of the girl. She snatched away my mobile and erased her daughter’s pictures and then started beating me up,” the youth said and added that he even apologised to the women.

Majumdar said photographs of many other girls were also stored in Matiur’s mobile phone. “We have started a case based on the complaint lodged by the woman and are investigating whether or not the youth had harboured any intention of doing harm to the girl.”

According to the officer, with cheap Chinese mobile handsets fitted with camera and video recording facilities available in the market, the youths in town were indulging in all sorts of nuisances. “We are keeping a sharp watch on them,” Majumdar said.