Pradeep Pradhan at Bagdogra Airport on Monday. (Kundan Yolmo)

Siliguri, Jan. 5: Keeping in mind a “larger interest”, police today let go Pradeep Pradhan at Bagdogra Airport where they had come to arrest the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leader accused of torching houses in Rohini.

While party president Bimal Gurung threw a tantrum threatening that there may be a law and order deterioration if his Man Friday was arrested, the Morcha vice-president furnished his voter’s ID card to prove that he was not the Pradeep Pradhan wanted by the police. The card identified him as Bhupendra Pradhan. “But my nickname is Pradeep,” the Morcha leader is reported to have told the police, confident that he would not be arrested.

Twenty houses were torched in Rohini on Thursday afternoon in retaliation to the lynching of a Morcha leader in a DGHC bungalow in the same area a few hours earlier.

Pradeep had been named in the FIR filed in the Garidhura outpost under the Kurseong police station for arson.

This afternoon, Gurung, Pradeep Pradhan, T. Dewan and K. Sharma, were at Bagdogra to catch a Jet Airways flight to Delhi scheduled for 2.45pm. Based on a tip-off, the police led by Siliguri deputy superintendent Pradip Dutta approached the four in the VIP lounge and asked Pradhan to identify himself.

They accused him of travelling under the false name of “B. Pradhan”.

The Morcha leader then took out his voter’s card, which identified him as Bhupendra Pradhan. The police by then had backtracked. Gurung told the officers that if the police intercepted the vice-president, none of the Morcha leaders would leave for Delhi. “If this leads to law and order problem, the police would be responsible,” he said.

“At a meeting held with the district administration this morning, we had decided to hand over to the police if we identified any of our men involved in the Rohini incident,” said Gurung after the policemen left. “We don’t understand why the police suddenly visited Bagdogra. Naming our vice-president in the complaint, who has no connection with the incident, and chasing him around, is not acceptable.”

Rahul Srivastava, the superintendent of police of Darjeeling, said “the person” has been named in the FIR. “However, for a larger interest and after contemplating on several factors, we refrained from intercepting him,” he said.