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Alipurduar, Feb. 3: An Ahmedabad-based event manager has allegedly fled with Rs 17 lakh that was advanced to him to pay 15 singers who were to perform at a Dooars soiree.
Police interrogated the manager of singer Keka Ghoshal, who had come to perform at the Dooars Utsav last night. Today, the police said Kinjal Bhattacharjee had no links with Joydip Roy, who has allegedly gone missing with the cash.
Ghoshal complained that she was forced to cancel her air tickets as her manager Kinjal had been interrogated this morning for three hours “for no fault of his”. Kinjal and his colleague Chayan Ghosh had been questioned yesterday too.
The Utsav Committee filed an FIR against event manager Roy on January 30, two days after singers Indranil Sen and Shilajit failed to turn up at the fest. The committee then realised that Roy had not paid at least seven of the singers who were to perform at the 10-day fest that ended last night.
Repeated calls to Roy’s cellphone went unanswered. A desperate Dipto Chatterjee, the chairperson of the Utsav Committee, requested Kinjal and Chayan to bring the artists. Both of them had earlier worked for Roy for a commission. This time, too, Roy had told them to contact the singers.
“Some artists had been paid by Roy and they had come. But the others did not. We told Kinjal and Chayan to somehow bring the rest. We promised to draw up a fresh agreement,” said Chatterjee, the chairperson of the Alipurduar municipality.
“A new deal was drawn up for Kaushiki Desikan, Abhijit, Babul Supriyo, Anupam, Somalata, Keka Ghoshal and the band, Sahar,” said Chatterjee.
Yesterday, Ghoshal had at first refused to take to the stage to protest alleged police harassment of Kinjal. But she relented after Chatterjee pleaded with her.
“I feel insulted as we are being harassed here unnecessarily. All the artists had come because of Kinjal and Chayan but these two have been victimised,” said Keka.
Additional superintendent of police Anup Jaiswal said: “We had interrogated the two men. Other than the fact that they knew Joydip had taken the money, the duo do not have any other connection with him. They can go wherever they want to.”
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