Councillor Sushanta Ghosh, who escaped a murder bid last week, met mayor Firhad Hakim at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters on Wednesday afternoon.

This was the first time Ghosh, who represents Ward 108 in the civic house and is also the chairman of borough XII, visited the KMC headquarters since the Friday night attack.

Hakim later told Metro that Ghosh expressed concern about his safety and that he asked the councillor not to worry about what happened and to concentrate on his duties as a public representative.

Ghosh arrived at the KMC headquarters on SN Banerjee around 3pm. Sources said that after spending some time in the mayor’s chamber, where a few other councillors were also present, the two met in Hakim’s antechamber.

“He was speaking about the incident and expressed concern about his safety. But I told him not to worry about what had happened. I told him that the government had given him protection and he should now concentrate on his work as a councillor. We also discussed some development work in his ward,” Hakim told this newspaper on Wednesday evening.

Calls to Ghosh from this newspaper on Wednesday evening went unanswered.

Ghosh, who had two policemen guarding him till Friday, is now protected by a team of four.

He was speaking to acquaintances in front of his house near Acropolis Mall, in Kasba’s Rajdanga, on Friday night when a man, later identified as Yuvraj Singh, got off a scooter and tried to fire at him. But the gun did not fire.

Singh tried to flee on the two-wheeler but was caught.

Three persons have been arrested for the murder bid so far — Singh; a taxi driver named Ahmed Khan and Gulzar Khan, the alleged mastermind, who is a resident of Gulshan Colony in Anandapur.

Friday’s attack on Ghosh was the third this year, police sources said. Two attempts were made in July and in October (during Durga Puja), the police said quoting Khan.

Khan was arrested in Galsi in Burdwan on Saturday.

During interrogation, he is said to have told the police about a fourth person, Iqbal, who allegedly supplied men on two previous occasions to kill Ghosh.

“Khan said Iqbal had supplied men on the two earlier occasions. The same set of people had come to kill the councillor on the previous occasions,” a senior police officer said. “We are verifying his statements,” he said.

Investigators also said Khan has been changing his versions to confuse the police.

A resident of Ward 108, Khan has told the investigators that he hired the killers for Rs 50 lakh, the police said. He had earlier said he paid the killers Rs 10 lakh.

Officers said Iqbal was a member of the gang led by Pappu Chowdhury, a Bihar-based gangster, whose men have allegedly carried out several abductions in the neighbouring state.