The main suspects in the alleged five-month confinement and torture of a young woman, Aryan Khan and his mother Sweta, were arrested on Wednesday.
While Aryan was arrested in Golf Green on Wednesday morning, Sweta was rounded up near the Alipore court in the evening. She was on her way to meet an acquaintance to seek shelter, police said.
Aryan and Sweta, who claimed to operate an event management company, were taken into custody five days after the woman’s parents filed an FIR against them and a minor family member at Khardah police station.
The complaint was lodged on June 7, hours after the critically injured woman escaped her captors and reached home.
The 23-year-old woman from Sodepur is currently fighting for her life at the College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital in Kamarhati.
Doctors moved her to the critical care unit on Tuesday night as her condition worsened.
Arrest & the hunt
A minor girl named in the FIR was also detained on Wednesday.
“On Wednesday morning, Aryan Khan was arrested from Golf Green, and a minor girl was detained. Later, at night, we arrested Sweta. All three are accused in the case,” Praveen Kumar Tripathi, commissioner of Howrah City Police, told The Telegraph.
The three face charges of wrongful confinement, inflicting grievous injuries, outraging the victim’s modesty, and attempted murder.
“We will question the mother and the son further to understand the extent of their alleged torture of the young woman,” a senior officer of Howrah City Police said. “Sweta will be produced before a Howrah court on Thursday.”
The operation
Police sources said Aryan visited a friend in Calcutta on Tuesday. Teams tracking his phone calls pinpointed his location in Golf Green, prompting two separate units from Howrah to move into the city.
“Aryan had planned to leave the Golf Green hideout for another location with a friend on Wednesday morning. When he stepped out, a plainclothes team that had been monitoring the area arrested him,” said a senior officer from Howrah’s Domjur police station.
Aryan was produced before a Howrah court and remanded in police custody for nine days.
Another team received intelligence that a minor girl wearing a hijab had reached an area near Navina cinema on Prince Anwar Shah Road on Tuesday. The team raided the locality on Wednesday and detained her.
Investigators said teams have been visiting Sonarpur, Kidderpore and Metiabruz since Tuesday looking for Sweta.
“Sweta was continuously on the move. We learnt she would be meeting an acquaintance near the Alipore jail late in the evening. When she arrived, we arrested her,” the officer said.
The original FIR, filed at Khardah police station, was transferred to Domjur on Saturday, where a formal case was registered against the accused. Within hours of the case being filed, the suspects disappeared.
Woman’s ordeal
The woman alleged she was brutally beaten with iron rods, choppers, and grinding stones during her captivity in Sweta’s Domjur apartment.
“There is no spot on my body where I was not hit while in custody,” the woman said before being admitted to the state-run hospital after escaping and reaching her home in Sodepur. “I couldn’t perform the chores properly and would get beaten up. Usually, Sweta would beat me up, and the boy would watch.”
According to the parents’ allegations, the mother and son lured their daughter with promises of work at an event management company in Domjur, but then tried to force her into dubious activities. The police said the FIR states she was asked to work as a bar dancer, which she refused.
Family seeks justice
On Wednesday, the woman’s mother expressed cautious hope: “I wrote to the chief minister seeking justice for my daughter on Tuesday. The police have arrested the accused. I hope my daughter’s condition gets better.”
