States: West Bengal: Another Killjoy Capital

Abductions, extortions, violence... Calcuttans are slowly waking up to the cruel fact that their city is going the Delhi and Mumbai way.

Businessmen like Ganguly are easy targets

On April 2 at 4.45 a.m., as was his routine, Exide Chairman and MD S.B. Ganguly left his residence in Calcutta's affluent Alipore neighbourhood for his morning stroll in the sprawling Agri-Horticultural Gardens, less than a kilometre away. He normally returned home by around 6.30 a.m. but that morning, he didn't. Slowly it dawned on Calcuttans that Ganguly had been abducted while taking a short-cut to the Gardens via a deserted lane. A week later, a tightlipped Calcutta Police is still agonising over the mystery. They have reasons to. This is the seventh abduction in the past year, according to police records. Several more have gone unreported.

Suddenly, residents see their "safe" Calcutta going the Mumbai way. Extortion, abduction and violence are holding the city to ransom. Just when the city was beginning to reconcile to political street-fighting, murders by domestic helps, killer buses and bank hold-ups, comes a new bogey: organised crime. Last December, a shootout with the Babloo Srivastava gang, where the police chased and finally killed four gangsters waiting to ambush a businessman, blew the lid off organised crime in the city. More and more gangs from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, even Delhi and Nepal, seem to be infiltrating the city. In 1998, at least two abductions were traced to out-of-state gangs.

SPATE OF ABDUCTIONS

April 4: Vivek Chatterjee, a real-estate dealer. Released; it's not clear if the ransom of Rs 2.5 lakh was paid up.
April 2: Exide chairman S.B. Ganguly. Fails to return from his morning walk.
March 20: Pradip Sahoo, trader. Rescued by police.
January 30: Sajjan Jalan, shopowner. Captors from outside the state. Released.
October 1998: Asgar Ali, fruit merchant. Abducted by a local gang.
September '98: Rajesh Jain, trader. Ransom was paid.
May '98: Ram Avtar Modi, sugar merchant. Released after ransom was paid.

There is no dearth of soft targets. Big business may have moved out, but Calcutta is still the home of small-time traders and real-estate sharks. Just two days after Ganguly was reported missing, Vivek Chatterjee, a real-estate dealer from south Calcutta was abducted. Late in the evening, his wife received a ransom call asking for Rs 2.5 lakh. Unlike Ganguly, Chatterjee was back home in 24 hours. The police are not sure if he paid up, but interrogations revealed he may have known his captors. "It's usually that way," says Deputy Commissioner of Police Narayan Ghosh. "Promoters and small businessmen often hire goons as hitmen or to help them evict tenants. Then the hooligans start demanding money. If the promoter can't pay up, they abduct him."

On April 6, the police busted a five-member gang alleged to have "specialised" in abductions. The gangsters had demanded a Rs 20 lakh-ransom from three small traders. Tracing the calls to two cell phones used by ringleader Mukesh Singh, the police nabbed the gang. Obviously, even small-time crooks have realised abductions mean easy money. Several local gangs operate in various parts of Calcutta.

Meanwhile, the spate of abductions has put the business community on the edge. Says B.D. Bose, former chief at Exide: "Everyone is wondering who will be next." Bengal Chamber of Commerce Deputy Secretary Pradeep Gooptu says the corporate honchos have adopted some measures borrowed from the security manuals of some MNCs.

Seven policemen have been posted at the Horticulture Gardens, where high-profile executives come for their daily walk. Morning walkers -- even those who stay close by -- now come in their cars, accompanied by bodyguards. Says a regular: "I've decided to take a new route every day and also leave my house at different times. Just so no one can study my movements." Tata Tea President S.M. Kidwai, who has seen his Assam estate manager Bolin Bordoloi abducted, says his family refuses to let him go out for a walk.

Homes are being fortified. Says S.S. Ahluwalia of Orient Securities: "People are now willing to pay anything from Rs 5,000 to Rs 5 lakh for their safety." A day after Ganguly's disappearance, a security agency received as many as 10 calls from corporates and companies.

For the state Government, Ganguly's abduction has come as an embarrassment. Home Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya, already under pressure from Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, has turned the heat on the police. "We are still optimistic," says Bhattacharya on finding Ganguly. The Government certainly has some rethinking to do. No amount of hardsell seems to attract big business to West Bengal. And it won't be long before the existing ones too close shop.