Take strict action against criminals, eminent Muslims urge Mamata Banerjee

Prominent faces of Muslim community have written a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee requesting her to take strict action against the accused - who happen to be Muslims – involved in assault on junior doctors of the Neel Ratan Sarkar (NRS) Medical College in Kolkata as well as attack on Miss India Universe (2010) Ushoshi Sengupta.

Expressing concern over the involvement of their community members in both the crimes, the group of signatories said they are ‘grieved and embarrassed’.

"We are Muslims living in Kolkata for decades. We have been deeply concerned with two events that occurred recently - the attack on doctors and the attack on actor Ushoshie Sengupta. The attackers in both cases instances were members of our community – Muslims. We are grieved and embarrassed,” the letter addressed to the chief minister read.

The letter mentions that there are two options before the West Bengal government to deal with the situation.

The first and foremost they said was to bring the accused to justice regardless of their faith. "Bring the assailants to book, not just in these two instances but every single instance where Muslims are involved. They should not be allowed to get away scot-free because they happened to be Muslims (as is the growing perception)."

Secondly, they urged the government to run gender sensitisation, civic consciousness and law compliance programmes for the Muslim youth in Kolkata.

Meanwhile, seven youths have been arrested and sent to police custody for allegedly attacking former Sengupta and vandalising the vehicle she was travelling in.

Sengupta, the winner of Miss India Universe pageant on 2010, was attacked by a group of young bikers near south Kolkata's Exide crossing while coming back from a city five-star hotel in an Uber cab with her colleague.

According to the model-actress, the boys attacked them, tried to break the window pane of the cab and assaulted the cab driver after one of the two-wheelers crashed with the car around 11.50 pm on Monday.