Bullets flew inside the ground-floor office of a building materials supplier in Bansdroni, on the southern fringes of the city, on Tuesday morning during a face-off between two men who were childhood friends but are now business rivals, police said.
Malay Dutta, who was attacked inside his office, suffered a bullet injury in his right chest after being fired upon allegedly by Biswanath Singh.
Police said some of Malay’s associates fired back at Biswanath, leaving him critically injured.
Malay was rushed to MR Bangur Hospital and from there to SSKM Hospital. Biswanath was admitted to a private hospital off EM Bypass.
Doctors at SSKM hospital said Malay would have to be operated on to remove the bullet that was stuck inside his thoracic cage.
At the private hospital off the Bypass, doctors treating Biswanath said a bullet had pierced his right rib cage and got lodged near his spinal cord. “Severe blood loss left him in a critical state and it would take time to prepare the patient for a surgical intervention,” a doctor said.
A police officer said an injured Biswanath had possibly returned home driving a two-wheeler before being taken to the private hospital by some of his associates, who wanted to evade police glare.
Officers from Bansdroni police station and the detective department of Kolkata police said Malay and Biswanath were childhood friends and supplied building materials to a local developer, who had his fingers in almost all major projects in and around Bansdroni’s Brahmapur area.
“Biswanath has not returned close to Rs 22 lakh that he owed my husband. He took it all. My husband didn’t want to continue and moved away,” said Mousumi, Malay’s wife. “Biswanath entered my husband’s office this morning and opened fire. He might enter our house next.”
The police said Malay had set up his office on the ground floor of an apartment block in Brahmapur a few years back. Around 10.30am, Biswanath walked down a small pathway on the ground floor of the building and entered Malay’s small office.
“We are scanning CCTV footage to find out the sequence of events. We need to know who fired first,” said a senior officer at Bansdroni police station. “There were at least four persons inside Malay's office.”
Bansdroni, a residential area along the north-south Metro line, has been witnessing a spurt in real estate activities since the Metro corridor was extended to Garia more than a decade back.
The local Trinamul Congress councillor (of Ward 111), Sandip Das, said: “There is nothing political in this incident. What I know is that the ground floor of the apartment block has an office whose owner runs multiple businesses. It is not possible to know details of all business activities.”
A number of residents of the area who did not want to be named said they were finding it difficult to believe that someone running an office on the ground floor of a residential building was carrying a gun.
“We have heard about shootouts happening in the open, on roads. This is possibly the first time bullets were fired inside an office, housed in a residential building,” said a resident of Brahmapur.
Arrests
Late on Tuesday, officers of the detective department said Shambhu Sardar, Arijit Poddar and Sheikh Shaid were arrested in connection with the shootout. A 7mm country-made gun was seized.
Senior officers said the three were named in the FIR drawn up suo motu by the police and picked up from various parts of Bansdroni and Regent Park. “All three are associates of Malay. One of them fired at Biswanath,” said a senior officer.
No senior officer was available for comment on record.
City detective chief Murli Dhar and the deputy commissioner of the south suburban division, Awadesh Pathak, did not respond to calls or messages from this newspaper.
