Teacher's assault: Cal HC asks state legal aid authority to

The Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the West Bengal Legal Aid Service Authority to file a report in connection with the alleged physical assault of a woman in South Dinajpur district.

On a prayer for taking suo motu cognizance of the issue by a lawyer, a division bench led by Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan directed the member secretary of the state Legal Aid Authority to submit the report at the earliest, after obtaining relevant information.

Smritikana Das, a high school teacher, was tied up, dragged on the road and locked up inside a house by alleged TMC supporters in Raiganj area of South Dinajpur district on Friday for opposing a land acquisition bid. A video grab of the incident has gone viral on social media.

Nobody has been arrested in the case so far.

Advocate Rabishankar Chatterjee drew attention of the court to the incident, citing newspaper reports.

The division bench, however, said that cognizance of a matter cannot be taken solely on the basis of media reports and sought a detailed account of the incident from the legal aid service authority.