Actors harassed at Kolkata airport over parking fee collection

KOLKATA: Actors Koushik Sen and his son Riddhi were allegedly heckled and harassed by parking fee collectors at Kolkata Airport on Saturday.
The incident happened around 10.30pm when Riddhi was leaving the airport after picking Sen who was returning from a shooting in Bhubaneshwar.
The actors alleged the parking attendants misbehaved with them and asked them to shell Rs.100 as the parking fee.
Vehicles entering the airport are allowed 10 mins of free stay to pick or drop passengers and leave. The actors claimed they were within the purview of the free period but were still demanded the fee.
"We were well within the free period. The men took advantage of the chaos and logjam near the parking kiosk and claimed the free time has crossed and asked us to shell out the money. When we protested they misbehaved with us and other fellow motorists who complained of the same," said Sen, who said he was returning home after shooting a film by director Kaushik Ganguly at Odisha.
The actors further alleged cops did nothing as a scuffle broke out between the attendants and the actors and other motorists who protested to pay the fee and misbehaved with the actors.
Police later arrested one of the parking attendants.
Complaints of extortion in the name of parking fee collection is not new in the airport. Last August green activist Subhas Dutta had raised a similar complaint and last month four parking attendants were arrested for allegedly assaulting a motorist who had raised the issue.
Earlier this week, police had shut down the parking fee kiosks after motorists complained of man-made logjams at the mouth of the kiosk to extort money and slated a slew of guidelines and posted policemen at the kiosks. But Saturday night's incident showed even as the cops made a deluge of promises to better the situation, nothing has changed at ground zero.