There was huge pressure on organizer Shatadru Dutta
State Bureau, Kolkata. Shatadru Dutta, the main organizer of Argentina's legendary footballer Leon Messi's tour to India, was already apprehensive about the event being held at the Salt Lake Stadium. While sharing this with his close ones, he said that there is a lot of pressure on him to get tickets for the Kolkata event and to introduce various people to Messi.
Shatadru probably kept the duration of Messi's stay in Kolkata very short for this reason. Initially they did not want to include Kolkata in Messi's India tour. Since he himself is from here, he had to include Kolkata to avoid criticism.
He had told his close ones that he is completely sure about the events to be held in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi, but there is doubt about how successful the event will be in Kolkata. He had also claimed that the Mumbai program would be the most successful.
It is known that Shatadru was arrested on charges of mismanagement of the event after the Salt Lake Stadium was vandalized by angry spectators for not being able to see Messi properly. He is in police custody and is being interrogated.
Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate has issued summons for questioning to six officials of organizations associated with its management in the matter of mismanagement of Messi's program. These include Shatadru Dutta's manager Laltu Das, apart from event manager Manali Bhattacharya, Supriya Dasgupta, Sambaran Karmakar, Aditya Das and senior officer of food delivery aggregator Amit Kumar.
Everyone has been asked to be present in the Commissionerate office on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Bengal Governor CV Anand Bose says that he will submit his report in this matter to the Central Government.
Minister embroiled in controversy over ticket distribution
A video of Bengal Fire Minister Sujit Bose distributing tickets for Messi's event is being circulated on the internet media. The minister has clarified that because he is associated with the football club, he gets 'complimentary passes'. It is not a crime to distribute them among your people. They were not taking money from anyone in return.
TMC MLA complains about trolling his wife
Shubhashree Ganguly, actress wife of TMC MLA and filmmaker Raj Chakraborty, came into controversy after sharing a photo with Messi. People are trolling him a lot on internet media. Raj has filed a police complaint against some people in the matter. Shubhashree, on behalf of the Bengali film industry, was present at Messi's welcome program at the hotel. After this, she was also seen on the stage made for VIPs in the stadium.
Five arrested in stadium vandalism case
Bidhannagar South police station has arrested five people in the case of vandalism at Salt Lake Stadium. An FIR has been registered against Basudev Das, Sanjay Das, Abhijeet Das, Gaurav Basu and Shubhrapratim on charges of damaging government property and assaulting government employees.
Police sources said that they have been identified from the video footage of CCTV cameras installed in the stadium. All five were presented in the Bidhannagar divisional court on Monday and sent to judicial custody till December 22.
Three public interest litigations in the High Court
Three PILs have been filed in the Calcutta High Court to get a central agency investigated into the mismanagement of Messi's event and the incident of vandalism in the stadium. These petitions have been filed by BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari along with advocates Sabyasachi Chattopadhyay and Mainak Ghoshal.
In the petitions, the court has been requested to give an order to hand over the responsibility of investigation to any central agency like CBI, ED or Serious Fraud Investigation Office. The petitions have also raised suspicions of irregularities in the sale of tickets.
Questions have also been raised on the 'competence' of the committee constituted by the Bengal government to investigate the incident. Meanwhile, the Bidhannagar police has frozen the bank accounts of the organization related to the sale and distribution of tickets and has also frozen its financial transactions with the main organizer Shatadru.