Police on Sunday spoke to employees of the New Town cafe where actor-turned-Trinamool Congress MLA Soham Chakraborty was allegedly caught on camera assaulting its owner and members of the staff.
CCTV footage emerged on Saturday that showed Chakraborty, the MLA from Chandipur in East Midnapore, holding cafe owner Anirul Alam by his collar, slapping him and pushing him to the ground. He is then seen dragging Alam out as many other men surround the two.
“We have spoken with the employees of the cafe who were there on Friday night to get an idea of the sequence of events,” a senior officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said while asking not to be named.
The cops have also taken footage from the CCTV cameras installed in the cafe.
The MLA has also been accused of threatening the owner that his business would be shut down. "The footage that emerged was of Friday night, around 8.20pm," a senior officer in the commissionerate said.
According to the officer, three complaints have been lodged.
On Saturday, the cafe's manager, Dipankar, had lodged a complaint against Chakraborty, who filed a counter-complaint. The third complaint was lodged by the owner of the cafe.
Chakraborty has been claiming that only a part of the CCTV footage is being shown and the portion that captured Alam and others lashing out at the MLA's guards and members of the shooting unit had been deleted.
“The footage that is being shown tells only a part of the story and that is one-sided. The owner of the cafe, his employees and several others first abused my security personnel before they started hitting them,” Chakraborty said.
A senior officer of the commissionerate said they were investigating the case from every angle.
Chakraborty apologised for his actions on Saturday but also said he had lost his cool as “the cafe owner started hurling abuses at me and Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress national general secretary)”.
The incident took place when the actor was shooting for a Bengali film at the rooftop cafe. The cafe is in a two-storey building that has other cafes and fast-food outlets on the ground floor, the officer said, quoting restaurant employees the cops have spoken to.
Trouble started over parking in front of the cafe, the officer said.
Abhishek's tweet
On Sunday, Trinamool’s national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee posted on X: "Victory calls for HUMILITY and GRACE. I request all @AITCofficial leaders and members to recognise the trust the people of WB have placed in us and strive to honor it. Elected public representatives owe their positions to the people’s mandate and should act more responsibly."
