Two groups, both allegedly affiliated to the Trinamul Congress, fought with rods and bamboo sticks at Lake Gardens on Monday morning apparently over a contract to demolish a three-storey building.
The scene of the clash, in front of 162/D 590 Lake Gardens, was two buildings away from the house of veteran Trinamul Congress MP Saugata Roy. Roy said he told police that what had happened was “unacceptable”.
A person close to the family that owns the building in the upscale neighbourhood told The Telegraph that the family was being hounded by a group of local men who said they were from Trinamul and that they wanted to be awarded the contract to demolish the house.
The family had shifted to a south Kolkata condominium two years ago and wanted to rebuild their Lake Gardens home with modern facilities. They finally gave in and awarded the contract to the men who had been pursuing them.
“They (the group that has been awarded the contract) were to get Rs 3.7 lakh for the work. The building came up in 1960. All the doors, windows, brick and mortar from the structure would go to the contractor. Work started more than two weeks ago. But today suddenly some others in the locality came and tried to disrupt work,” said the person close to the family.
The building at 162/D 590 Lake Gardens that is being demolished Bishwarup Dutta
Eyewitnesses said a group of men started hurling abuses at the labourers working at the site around 11.30am.
“Soon both sides attacked each other with rods and bamboo sticks. Police came after that,” said a guard at another building in the neighbourhood.
Several people who live on that stretch, lined with standalone buildings and a few apartment blocks, said they were “shocked”.
“I have never seen anything like this in our neighbourhood before. In an area where a member of Parliament lives, something like this?” wondered Ashish Chowdhury, an elderly resident of the locality.
Another resident who did not wish to be named said she had asked her driver to park their vehicle in the garage and lock the main gate.
MP Roy sounded no less shocked.
Saugata Roy’s house (behind trees) is two buildings away from the one in front of which the clash broke out Bishwarup Dutta
“I heard shouts and screams. I came out and saw that the men were fighting. Two of them suffered head injuries,” he said.
“I immediately alerted the police. Officers from Lake police station arrived. Such clashes, over who will demolish a building, are simply unacceptable. I told the OC that this is a peaceful neighbourhood where so many elderly people live and something like this is unacceptable. I told them to stop the demolition work, if needed.”
By the time a team from Lake police station reached the spot, the clash had almost ended. The police took the injured to hospital and arrested six persons from the spot and rounded up four more later.
The deputy commissioner of police, south-east, Sudip Sarkar, said they had received two complaints, based on which two cases had been started and 10 persons rounded up.
“They have been booked under IPC sections related to attempt to murder. Members of both sides have been arrested,” he said.
Allegations have surfaced that the men who attacked the workers on Monday were close to former Trinamul Congress councillor of the area (Ward 93) Ratan Dey.
Dey did not respond to phone calls or text messages from this newspaper seeking his reaction to the allegations. MP Roy said he had spoken to Dey.
Residents of the area the other group, too, has Trinamul connections.
Current councillor Mousami Das said she could not comment on the incident. "I am not involved in any syndicate business. Everyone now says he is Trinamul but it is impossible for me to know each of them,” she said.
The local Trinamul MLA and president of south Kolkata district Trinamul Congress committee, Debasish Kumar, told The Telegraph that the party had nothing to do with the incident.
“Trinamul does not endorse such actions. If any of them is a member, he will be suspended from the party,” Kumar said.
He denied allegations that the clash resulted from a dispute between two factions of the party. “We have not found any of the councillors or leaders involved in this. This is not a faction feud in the party,” he said.
Last week, a clash broke out between two alleged Trinamul Congress factions over a dispute to exert control over the business of supplying construction materials in Behala.
Allegations had surfaced that bullets were fired and bombs hurled to take control of a relatively small pocket of Ward 121.
Trinamul-controlled syndicates have not spared party MPs in the past.In July 2017, Sugata Bose, then a Trinamul MP and great-nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose, was harassed by a group of bike-borne men who had interrupted labourers at his home and demanded why he had not procured building materials from the syndicate to repair a portion of his Sarat Bose Road house in south Kolkata.
Bose had asked the group to leave, concerned about the security of his mother Krishna Bose, a former Trinamul MP who usually lives alone at the house. But identifying themselves as Trinamul supporters, the group dared Bose to do “whatever he wished to” and threatened to return.