Briefs

Maoists abduct teacher,a CPM man
Suspected Maoists abducted a school teacher from a secondary school at Sarulia village in Bankura district this evening. According to police,Maoists raided a secondary school and abducted Ranjit Duley,the head master of the school which is run by the local panchayat. Bankura SP Vishal Garg said a search operation is on in the forest areas. Amiya Patra,CPM district committee secretary in Bankura,said Duley is also a local committee member of CPM at Sarenga. He said five-six armed Maoists came on motorbikes and took away the teacher who was in his room in the school.

Two IT staff held for threatening man,say it was a ‘practical joke’
Two employees of an IT firm — Susmit Ghosh (27) and Wong Chan Kuye (23) — were arrested by the police on Thursday night for allegedly giving threats to a man who too works in IT sector. The duo also allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh from him. A resident of BD Block in Salt Lake,Rabin Karmakar,started receiving the threat calls on Thursday and lodged a complaint with the Bidhannagar North police station. “We tracked the mobile phone numbers from the service providers and got their addresses,” said police. Susmit was then arrested from Ultadanga and Kuye from Behala. However,both the youths who come from well-off families claimed they tried to pull up a practical joke without knowing the consequences. Both hold good positions in a Salt Lake-based IT firm. Their lawyer pleaded that they were not linked with any abduction racket and a misunderstanding has led to the arrests. However the duo were produced before the Bidhannagar sub-divisional magistrate and remanded to seven days of judicial custody on Friday. Police sources said that the accused did not have any criminal antecedent. “Investigation is on and it is difficult to say whether the duo knew Karmakar. However,they have not admitted any such thing to us and we have acted on documentary evidence,” said SDPO Bidhanagar Subhankar Bhattacharjee.