Bihar minister assaulted at Tarapith hotel

Tarapith: Bihar urban development and housing minister Suresh Kumar Sharma was allegedly assaulted at a hotel in Tarapith on Monday afternoon following an altercation over the refund of booking charges.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar called Sharma to inquire about the matter.
Trouble broke out when an employee at the hotel reception refused to return the booking amount in ca-sh, since the minister had done the booking online.
Sharma had come to Tarapith to offer puja. “We had booked two rooms, but the rooms they showed us were not to our expectation. When we asked for better ones, the man at the reception misbehaved with the minister. We then decided to leave the hotel and asked for a refund of the booking amount. There was an altercation, following which hotel employees manhandled the minister,” said his personal secretary, Sanjiv Kumar.
Kumar said that apart from the minister, two of his personal securitymen were also injured in the attack by the Tarapith hotel employees.
Kumar was also upset with the “Bengal government’s attitude”. “As per protocol, we had intimated the Birbhum administration before coming here. I had even called the Birbhum police on our way from Dumka. But no security arrangements were in place,” Kumar said.
And even after the incident, only the local SDPO, Dhritiman Sarkar, called Sharma. None of the other senior officers bothered to call him, claimed Kumar.
The minister was planning to lodge a formal complaint with the Rampurhat police.
Hotel manager Sunil Giri, however, put the blame on Sharma, saying that he had slapped Pranab Manna, the person at the reception, after the latter refused to refund the money in cash. Manna had said that the refund for an online booking had to be made online. Hotel sources alleged that the minister’s men damaged the computer at the reception. The hotel has video footage of the entire incident, said Giri.
There was a scuffle in front of the hotel between the minister’s men and hotel employees. Soon after the violence,Sharma left the hotel in a huff.
Kumar then took up the matter with the Union home ministry and was advised to get in touch with Birbhum SP N Sudhir Kumar. The Birbhum SP didn’t take TOI’s call. Instead he left a message saying that he was busy making arrangements for chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s meeting in Birbhum on Wednesday.
Birbhum district magistrate P Mohan Gandhi said: “We had no prior intimation about the Bihar minister’s itinerary. I have asked the Birbhum SP to look into the matter.” Trinamool minister from Birbhum’s Rampurhat Ashis Banerjee said he had no clue about the incident. “I will look into the matter and see that the state doesn’t earn a bad name,” Banerjee said.