The local club runs the local syndicate and so, the control of the club is
important.

Conversations in Ariadaha on the northern fringe of Calcutta on Wednesday offered a glimpse into why the contest for local control is hotting up in pockets of the city.

A young man and his mother were beaten up early on Monday by members of a rival club whose leader allegedly wanted to exert control over a larger swathe of the area.

Jayant Singh, a local Trinamool Congress strongman, allegedly spearheaded the attack with his men on Sayandip Panja because he wanted control over the 50-year-old Addyama Balak Sangha, a section of residents of the area said.

Sayandip’s mother Bubun suffered severe blows while trying to shield him.

The club, on Kedar Nath Singha Road at the far end of Ariadaha’s Ward 11 under Kamarhati municipality, is a stone’s throw from the three-storeyed house of the Panjas.

Sayandip’s father Bimal is a club member along with others in the area, including Sayandip and his cousins.

Jayant is the last word at the Ariadaha Taltala Sporting Club, some 500 metres from the place where the mother and son were beaten up.

Bubun has suffered a fracture in her lower jaw and lost several teeth. Doctors have said she can’t chew food for the next month-and-a-half.

“Jayant has been unsuccessfully trying to take control of our club for a few years. He wants it desperately to expand his network of syndicates that supply building material to real estate developers in the area,” Bimal told Metro.

“Kintu amra kyano maanbo (But why will we agree)? Our club members are mostly employed and don’t need to earn money from the syndicates,” he said.

On Sunday night, members of Addyama Balak Sangha had organised a get-together that continued till late. Sayandip, his cousins and others were out on the road when some members of the rival club passed by on their two-wheelers.

A preliminary police investigation has revealed that one of them, Pritam Kahar, picked a fight with Sayandip. A heated exchange led to a scuffle.

An hour-and-a-half later, Pritam and a larger group of men reached the house of the Panjas, called Sayandip out and attacked him. When his mother went to rescue him, she wasn’t spared.

“We used to be active members of the Taltala club till about a year back. Sayandip’s father asked him to move
away from the club following the arrest of Jayant Singh on charges of attempt to murder,” said Samik Panja, Sayandip’s cousin.

“My brother was privy to many things that Jayant and his men were involved in — running ganja and satta joints and extorting shopowners in the local market in Nowdapara,” Samik said.

Since his release on bail, Jayant has been trying to expand his area of domination across parts of Ariadaha where, like many other parts of the city, apartment blocks are replacing crumbling stand-alone houses, several residents of the area said.

“Jayant Singh and his men have successfully taken over several clubs in our locality — Ramkrishna Pally, Jonaki Sporting Club, Pallimangal Club and Sangrami Club for example,” said a resident who did not want to be identified.

“More clubs, more men and bigger syndicates. Jayant ensures his men are employed in projects where the land has been forcibly bought at lower than the prevailing price of around ₹25 lakh a cottah. He controls the real estate business in the area,” the resident said.

Real estate is such an important factor in places like this that several residents asked this reporter if he was looking for a plot to develop.

Multi-storeyed apartment blocks have sprung up on narrow roads that criss-cross the area, located behind Kamarhati Municipality on BT Road.

Gopal Saha, chairman of the Trinamool-run Kamarhati municipality, admitted “area domination” was a reality.

“We held a meeting about a year-and-a-half ago with senior functionaries of the Trinamool Congress and some local youths to explain that Kamarhati shouldn’t witness any violence even if some of them were engaged in running syndicates supplying building material.... Even police officers were present. Unfortunately, such complaints about alleged area domination have started surfacing again,” Saha said.

Saugata Roy, Trinamool’s Dum Dum MP, said: “I met the mother and son after returning from Delhi. Those who beat them are horrible criminals.”

“It doesn’t matter if these men are linked to Trinamool. I have asked the police to take the most stringent action against them,” he said.

The police said they had arrested two men, including one believed to be Jayant’s aide, since Tuesday night, taking the count of the total arrested in this connection to eight.

But the key man, Jayant Singh, is missing.

“We will arrest Jayant soon. Our team is at work round-the-clock,” a senior officer of the Barrackpore police commissionerate said.