Kolkata: The top official of a premier resort in Kolkata has been arrested for forcible acquisition of land and possessing illegal arms, police said on Sunday.
Raj Kishore Modi, managing director Vedic Realty - the holding company of Vedic Village, was formally arrested on late Saturday night after several rounds of quizzing since August 24, said North 24 Parganas district Superintendent Police Rahul Srivastava.
The resort at Rajarhat in West Bengal has been in the news after a part of it was set afire on August 23 by a mob incensed over some miscreants taking shelter in its premises after killing one person.
The miscreants, including local tough Gabbar, had hurled bombs and fired indiscriminately after their team lost a game in a soccer tournament. A youth was killed in the violence.
A day later, police recovered a cache of arms and bomb-making material from inside the 1,600-acre project area of Vedic Realty.
It transpired that Gabbar was close to the company's management and played a leading role in coercing people to give up their land to the firm.
Apart from Modi, the Vedic Realty project manager Biplab Biswas was among 30 people arrested.
Two other company officials - executive director MJ Roberston and resort general manager Santanu Bhattacharya - have also been interrogated over the last few days.
The incident has triggered a political storm with the Congress demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe to unearth the irregularities in the resort and the patronage it had received from West Bengal's Left Front government.
Police sources have spoken of the links of a relative of main opposition Trianmool Congress lawmaker in the wrongdoings, while the Front major Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has demanded a report from Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah on some government land given to the company.
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has denied the involvement of a party MLA in the matter and claimed that the CPI-M was behind the allegation in order to take the spotlight away from some of its leaders whose names were being mentioned in connection with the irregularities.
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