Kolkata: A young NGO owner, who is a friend of the absconding mastermind of the Parliament smoke protest, Lalit Jha, and had received a video recording of the stir from him on his mobile phone, was traced in West Bengal and questioned by the state police about their connection.
Nilaksha Aich, the NGO owner, lives at Halishahar in North 24 Parganas and is an English (Honours) student of Bidhannagar Government College at Salt Lake. A few months ago he had opened the Samyabadi Subhas Sabha, an NGO for tribals’ upliftment in Purulia.
Lalit worked with him as the NGO general secretary while staying at a rented house on 218 Rabindra Sarani at Burrabazar in central Kolkata. At around 2 pm on Thursday, state intelligence branch officers, on the request of the Delhi police, visited Nilaksha at home. They grilled him for a few hours.
In the morning, Nilaksha said: “In April this year, I met Lalit at a seminar on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Indian Association Hall on Central Avenue in Kolkata. Some researchers and writers were also there. Lalit was among the event organizers. It was after 1 pm on Wednesday when he sent me a video on WhatsApp.”
He added: “Lalit also sent a message in Hindi asking me to watch it and wrote that it would help me. I didn’t see it then as I was on the road. Returning home, when I saw the news on TV, I watched the video that showed two persons protesting with smoke canisters. I then asked Lalit where it had happened but got no response.”
Nilaksha claimed that Lalit never told him about his address in Kolkata. “I also never thought of him having a motive for such an incident . Whatever conversation we had, was about our organisation,” he said.
