india

Updated: Oct 19, 2019 05:51 IST

The police on Friday evening arrested Sudipto Chatterjee, a theatre practitioner and teacher after two women lodged complaints against him at two police stations on Thursday, accusing him of raping them on the pretext of teaching acting techniques.

Deputy Commissioner (south east division) of Kolkata Police Debasmita Das confirmed the arrest on charges of rape but did not divulge further details.

Chatterjee has been the helmsman of the theatre group Spectator and was a professor of media studies at a private college. He resigned from the college on Tuesday, a day after one of his students, took to social media to describe her ordeal.

Later, two other women supported her and claimed to have undergone similar treatment from the thespian.

Chatterjee holds a PhD from New York University and has been a known face in Kolkata’s theatre circle for over two decades.

He will be produced before a city court on Saturday.

The women who brought charges against him alleged that the violation took place when Chatterjee intended to teach ‘diaphragm breathing technique’ at his residence.

According to the social media post of one of the women, the incident took place two years ago.

All the three women are in their twenties.

Describing her ordeal one of the women wrote on social media, “I auditioned for a play called Lysistrata, which happened to be an in-house production of the institute, whereupon I was selected by Sudipto Chatterjee for the lead role of his own production ‘Bhadroja’....After three shows of Bhadroja, he suddenly realized that a scene wasn’t working and wanted to help me out with that. He called me to his place to teach me diaphragm breathing and psycho-physical approach to acting.”

“... he asked me to lie down on the bed with my eyes closed and deliver the dialogues of the above mentioned scene. He started touching me and asked me to respond to his touch while delivering the dialogues. Then without a warning, he sexually assaulted me and asked me to spurt out the dialogues louder and louder,” she added.

She also alleged that Chatterjee’s wife had asked her to forget the incident.