Kamal Ghorui
Sports promoter Satadru Dutta on Monday spoke publicly about the issues during Lionel Messi’s GOAT Tour event in Kolkata last year. Messi, along with former Barcelona teammate Luis Suarez and former Atletico Madrid player Rodrigo de Paul, had left the Salt Lake Stadium within 25 minutes on December 13 after confusion and crowd trouble at the venue. At the time, then West Bengal sports minister Aroop Biswas, who was with Messi during the event, was accused of allowing people without registration into the stadium. Many fans who had bought costly tickets were left unhappy. The situation later turned chaotic, with some fans damaging property inside the stadium. The event, which was expected to last an hour, had to be cut short. A few hours later, Satadru was arrested at Kolkata airport and remained in custody for 38 days before being released on January 19. After the recent West Bengal assembly elections, in which Biswas lost the Tollygunge seat and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) lost power, Satadru reacted publicly to the incident. “Just because you have lost in the elections, don’t think that you have been punished. I will lodge a defamation case, and if needed, will go to the Supreme Court. I will fight till the end,” he wrote on Facebook stories, as quoted by Sportstar. He also accused Biswas of ignoring repeated warnings during the event. “Repeatedly, I told him not to click pictures here. But, he, using his power, went on to click photos. He will have to pay for this. He (Biswas) is having a laugh while his own people infiltrate. No one heard my cry of anguish. Police also stood still,” he added. Satadru further said he would soon hold a press conference and speak in detail about what happened. “Press conference is coming soon. Everything will be exposed. You sabotaged my event. You victimised me. You made my three years of effort and perseverance go in vain. You made all the fans disappointed. You put me in jail for 38 days. Now, it’s my turn. They thought silence could bury the truth…forced my team to issue ground access cards. When they refused, ground access card was denied. You locked them in room arrest. Intimidation. Control. Your stooges didn’t just interfere…they blackmailed my event. They sabotaged everything.”
