Hours after a video footage showing an IAS officer and his wife mercilessly beating up a youth for posting lewd comments on Facebook went viral, the erring officer was sent on leave, sources at the State Secretariat Nabanna said.
The alleged bawdy comments were about the wife of the said officer.
Nikhil Nirmal the erring 2011 batch IAS officer and District Magistrate of Alipurduar was promptly sent on leave after instructions came from the topmost level came, sources said adding the incident had been taken note of.
The video footage showed the erring officer raining blows on the hapless youth Shankar with the senior officer’s wife lending her husband a “helping hand.”
The man was picked up by the police and brought to the Falakata Police Station where he was beaten up inside the chamber of the local inspector in-charge who only did the precious little by managing to thwart an attempt to use lathi on the victim who continuously cried for mercy but apparently not getting it.
The officer had since then remained incommunicado, neither police IC Soumyajit Roy was available for comments. “The political leadership has taken the incident very seriously and will take stringent action against the accused,” a Trinamool Congress MLA from North Bengal said.
The DM was not only beating up the man but was repeatedly heard threatening him with dire consequences, sources said. “In my district no one will talk over me,” the DM reportedly told the man. Even as he begged for mercy the officer told him how “I can enter your house and kill you there.”
The better part of the incident was that when the wife of the erring officer who also allegedly slapped the victim asked someone to bring a lathi from the vehicle parked outside the police officer present thereadvised against using sticks.
Shockingly the incident unfolded inside the police station without any complaint or FIR being drawn against the man.
“Why did they beat him up like this? Anything could have happened to my son. The DM sahib could have arrested him and taken legal actions but why beating up like this? We want justice and we will move the court for justice,” said the victim’s parents.
Meanwhile, human rights activists took up the issue demanding penal action against the top officer. “Thankfully someone had posted it on the social media. Had it not been so it would have been another incident of bureaucratic excesses passing off without any protest,” said human rights activists and member of APDR Ranjit Basu.