Aide of Bengal sports minister arrested

Close on the heels of the nabbing of anti-socials from the Salt Lake stadium, the police arrested Tapas Ghosh, a close aide of West Bengal Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty, who has been accused of "shetering criminals" in the stadium premises.

Tapas Ghosh, secretary of 'Friends of the Stadium, ' was arrested from his Baguiati residence on Sunday for allegedly harbouring criminals in the stadium, Inspector General of police (South Bengal) Prasun Mukherjee said on Monday.

'Friends of the Stadium' is an NGO with informal authority to supervise all activities in the stadium. Ghosh was accused of alloting rooms to criminals in the stadium's guest house.

The North 24 Parganas police, under which Ghosh's residence falls, made the arrest, Mukherjee said. He was later interrogated by the police.

The arrest of 16 antisocials from the Salt Lake stadium on June 27, had snowballed into a controversy over the sports minister's alleged 'sheltering of criminals for rigging the assembly election'' with the opposition Trinamool Congress demanding the dismissal of the Left Front government in the state.

The minister had dismissed the allegation and said those arrested from the stadium were Trinamool Congress activists.