The police arrested Kolkata Municipal Corporation councillor Swapan Samaddar of the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday based on a complaint filed by a woman on Tuesday night. The FIR was registered under charges including attempted murder and molestation.

As the police took Samaddar to the Narkeldanga station, locals threw eggs at him and shouted “chor chor” (thief). He is the 10th municipal corporation councillor arrested since the new government took office in West Bengal.

Samaddar is also one of the accused in the case related to the murder of BJP worker Abhijit Sarkar during the 2021 Assembly polls. Sarkar was brutally murdered at Kankurgachi in Kolkata, on the day the 2021 election results were declared. Before his death, Sarkar had done a Facebook Live saying he and his pets were under attack.

Speaking to The Indian Express after Samaddar’s arrest, Abhijit Sarkar’s brother Biswajit Sarkar said, “He had killed my brother, taken away everything from us, and finished our family. He and his men used to threaten us. They had also assaulted me. We have fought for justice for my brother. They should get a stringent punishment.”

The Narkeldanga police began investigating the murder, but later, the Calcutta High Court ordered that the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The police filed a chargesheet against 15 people. In September 2021, the CBI filed its first supplementary chargesheet, naming five more accused. Its list of the accused in the case now includes Beleghata’s TMC MLA, Paresh Pal, and councillors Samaddar and Papiya Ghosh.