Brawl over meal ends in murder in city hotel

KOLKATA: A brawl over a piece of roti provoked an employee of a central Kolkata hotel to slash the throat of his colleague early on Wednesday. The employee, Swapan Maity, is now absconding.
Preliminary investigation revealed that Maity , a group-D employee of the Paul Inn Hotel, was extremely angry, on Tuesday night, when his share of rotis was consumed by Kanu Das.
Swapan apparently used to have only rotis for dinner, but on Tuesday night, he was forced to eat rice, which he hated.
"There was a brawl during dinner, but other employees managed to pacify them and bring matters under control," said Ranjit Biswas, another hotel employee. The hotel is on Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road in the Muchiapara Police station area.
Police said Kanu, Swapan, Manabrata Jana and Ranit Biwas, all employees of the hotel, used to sleep at the premises.
Kanu joined the hotel only seven days ago.
According to Jana and Biswas, Swapan was hotheaded and an alcoholic.
On Tuesday too, he was drunk after his day''s work.
At around 3 am, Jana and Biswas woke up hearing a sound to find Swapan trying to put Kanu''s body into a sack. As they screamed in fright, Swapan took to his heels.Kanu was found lying unconscious in a pool of blood. He was declared ''brought dead'' to the hospital.
A raid will be carried out at Basirhat, where Swapan resided. Kanu was a resident of Midnapore.