Hotel assault cry against MLA gang

A bike gang backed by Trinamul MLA Sabyasachi Dutta allegedly assaulted two guards of a New Town hotel after one of them misled the leader about the way to a venue where he was to attend a programme on Wednesday evening.

New Town MLA Sabyasachi Dutta, who has denied any violence by his supporters, had gone to Pride Hotel, opposite Axis Mall in the Rajarhat township, to attend an event of a courier company.

A guard led his Toyota Fortuner – mistakenly, according to the hotel management – to a wedding venue that was not part of the hospitality address.

Within minutes, close to 150 men on bikes reached the hotel and allegedly pounced on the guards and threatened the hotel authorities that the entire premises would be ransacked if they raised their voice.

The MLA said the hotel guard’s conduct was “pre-planned”, aimed at “humiliating him”. His supporters see a conspiracy by his rival in Trinamul, an MP.

Dutta had arrived at the hotel around 6.45pm to attend the launch of a courier company. “I was in my car, accompanied by two guards.My guards categorically told the hotel guard about the purpose of my visit but they misguided me to a wrong venue outside the hotel,” Dutta said.

His driver followed the direction of the hotel guard and the MLA landed up at a wedding reception.

“People at the reception asked me where I wanted to go. Some guards there gave us a direction, following which we reached in front of a generator room at the rear of the hotel,” Dutta said.

A hotel guard recognised Dutta and offered to take him to the courier company’s event. The hosts hauled up the hotel authorities after coming to know from the MLA the inconvenience he had faced.

By then, news of Dutta’s harassment had “reached” his supporters. Within a few minutes, the 150-strong bike gang vroomed into Pride Hotel.

An official of the hotel, who did not wish to be named, said the men barged into the hotel lobby and started assaulting two guards and abusing members of the management.

“As soon as they arrived, they demanded to see the security supervisor (Aurobindo) and the guard (Trideb) who had misled the MLA by mistake. They started raining blows on them. When some of us tried to intervene, they abused us.”

Dutta, however, claimed that only a “handful of my supporters who were in the vicinity came to see whether I was okay”.

“I called up senior officers of the Bidhannagar commissionerate and they immediately sent a team to prevent any untoward incident,” he said.

The hotel has given an “intimation letter” to the police naming the MLA and asking them to ensure such an incident did not recur.

“They have told us they do not want us to initiate any case against the MLA. But they want us to ensure that such incidents are not repeated,” an officer of the commissionerate said.

“The guards made a mistake and we apologised to the MLA. We respect the MLA,” said Shraddha Chattopadhyay, the spokesperson of the hotel, which also has properties in eight other cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Nagpur.

The Calcutta address opened in 2011.

Chattopadhaya, the “liaison officer” of the hotel, is also president of Trinamul’s women cell in Bidhanngar.

Sources in the party said that Sharaddha is perceived to be close to Kakoli, which ticked off Sabyasachi when he saw her in hotel’s lobby.

An associate of Sabyasachi who was present in the hotel said “an official of the hotel called up some of Kakoli’s supporters in New Town” and shared details of the incident with them. This led Sabyasachi and his supporters to believe that the “conspiracy” to humiliate him was hatched by Kakoli’s supporters.

New Town, from where Sabyasachi is the MLA, falls under the Barasat Lok Sabha segment where Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar is the MP.

Both the leaders are known to be at loggerheads over supply syndicates and construction related issues in the fledgling townships where several residential and commercial projects are at various levels of construction.

An associate of Kakoli said that Sabyasachi wants to control the entire area alone and would not let Kakoli’s men run syndicates there.

“Kakoli di’s men find it very difficult to work in the area because Sabyasachi ensures that only his men operate the syndicates and other construction related activities. To keep her hold intact, Kakoli di has to ensure that her supporters also get some business. This is the bone of contention between the two leaders,” said Kakoli’s associate.

The strife between the two leaders has often spilled out on the streets in the form of clashes.

In August last year, Prahlad Mondal, who is known to be a close associate of Sabyasachi Dutta, was shot at while returning from a party meeting. Trinamul leaders in the township had alleged that supporters of Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar carried out the attack.

Source: telegraphindia.com