Published on: Jul 31, 2025 05:54 pm IST
Two Aadhaar cards, Indian voter ID card, ration card, several documents along with Shanta Pal’s Bangladeshi passport and some travel papers were seized
Kolkata: A 28-year-old Bangladeshi model and actor was arrested from the Bikramgarh area of south Kolkata on Wednesday in connection with a cheating case, police said.
A first information report (FIR) was registered against Shanta Pal at the Park Street police station on July 28. “A case under cheating and criminal conspiracy was registered and Pal was arrested from her flat. The investigation revealed that she was posing as an Indian national,” a police officer, requesting anonymity, said.
The detective department of the Kolkata Police seized two Aadhaar cards, an Indian voter ID card, a ration card, and several documents along with Pal’s Bangladeshi passport and some travel papers from Pal.
“The Indian ID documents indicate that Pal posed as a local to run a car rental business. While one Aadhaar card was issued against an address in East Burdwan district five years ago, the other had Pal’s Kolkata address. She also has a second address in Kolkata,” the officer added.
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Pal used to run a food vlog on her Facebook page. She posted her last video on July 28.
Amid a political row over the detention of hundreds of migrant workers from West Bengal in states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and Delhi on the suspicion that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that these detentions are an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to delete the names of a large number of voters from the state’s electoral roll before the 2026 assembly polls. The BJP has denied the allegation.
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The West Bengal Police has launched a helpline to support Bengali-speaking migrant workers amid rising tensions over their alleged harassment in BJP-led states. In response, the BJP has termed the move politically motivated and accused the state police of targeting Bengali Hindus, and the leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, has launched a parallel helpline for Bengali Hindus in West Bengal.
