A café owner in Jodhpur Park was allegedly assaulted and threatened with closure of her business if she refused to donate money for a programme organised by a local club said to be run by Trinamul leaders.
The five-day event organised by Jodhpur Park 95 Pally was called off 48 hours before the scheduled start following a complaint by Swarlipi Chatterjee, who runs Abaar Boithak — the Coffee Shop.
“We have cancelled the event,” said a club official on Thursday night.
Five men have been arrested, officers of Lake police station said.
Chatterjee told The Telegraph that she saw a team apparently from Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) remove encroachments from the footpath near her café on Wednesday afternoon.
“The owners of some shops in the area left their belongings on the footpath. The KMC team removed them. After some time, a few men came to my café when I was away. They left a brochure of an event organised by Jodhpur Park 95 Pally and asked an employee to tell me to keep a cheque ready,” Chatterjee said.
“They told my employees: “Bolbe councillor-er lok eshechhilo. Dekhle to ki korechhi, ekhaneo kore debo (Tell the owner that the councillor’s men had come. Hope you have seen what we did today? We shall do the same here, too).”
The Telegraph contacted Trinamul councillor of Ward 93, Mousumi Das, for her reaction but multiple calls went unanswered.
The brochure the men left in the shop mentions the name of Trinamul leader Ratan Dey as president of the club. Calls to Dey went unanswered, too.
Two men came back to the cafe on Wednesday evening and asked Chatterjee for the cheque.
“I told them I had incurred huge losses during the pandemic and was not in a position to pay. They left and within a few minutes, a large number of men turned up outside my café. I started recording the events on my cellphone. A man who introduced himself as Bijoy Dutta twisted my arm and snatched my phone,” she said.
Dutta allegedly threatened to close down the café.
After the group left, Chatterjee and her friend went to Lake police station to report the matter.
“As we left the police station, a few men on motorcycles started stalking us. We got scared and parked our car outside Jadavpur police station before calling the Lake police for help. A vehicle from Lake police station arrived and escorted us back to Jodhpur Park,” Chatterjee said.
Bijoy was among the five people arrested.