Wife, her friend behind eatery ransack: Owner

KOLKATA: Less than 24 hours after a new restaurant opposite South City Mall was ransacked by six men and the employees were threatened with the abduction of the owner, cops from the Lake police station carried out nightlong raids on Purba Putiary, Regent Park and Karunamoyee and caught two of the accused on Wednesday. The same day, the restaurant owner, Arnab Chatterjee, claimed it was his wife, with whom he had a strained relationship, and her friend were behind the attack.Both refuted the allegation.
The police identified the accused from the images of CCTV cameras installed inside the restaurant that reportedly showed some of them ransacking the place. “We have identified two of the accused as Rik Dey (19), a resident of Dinesh Pally in Jadavpur under the Regent Park police station and Subhankar Dhali (19) from Purba Anandapally, also in the Regent Park area,” said DC (south east) Ajoy Prasad. Police are questioning Dey and Dhali about the whereabouts of the other accused. “The motive is still not clear. The two have been claiming they were assigned the task of accompanying the main accused to the restaurant,” said an officer.
The owner, Chatterjee, is from the same neighbourhood. “I have been threatened twice in the past seven months. Once, they had narrowly missed attacking me. That was in Narkeldanga. I lodged complaints at the Regent Park and Narkeldanga police stations as well as Lalbazar against my wife’s friend earlier,” he saod.
The incident took place on Tuesday afternoon, when a group of men barged into a new Bengali cuisine restaurant, Arnar Sangsar, threatened the employees inside and left after ransacking the eatery. According to Gouranga Das, an employee, the accused waited outside till all the customers left. “The manager, Surajit Bhattachatya, and steward Sourav Ojha were inside. The rest of the staff were having lunch. A man in a white t-shirt and another in shorts walked up to the cash counter and confronted our staff. The man in the white t-shirt had a firearm concealed near his trousers. They were here for exactly four minutes within which they threatened us and ransacked the place,” said Das.