Kolkata police arrest three for refusing guest rooms to 10 madrasa teachers on religious grounds 

Three persons were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly driving out 10 madrasa teachers from a guest house in Kolkata despite their pre-booking, police said. The three employees of the guest house in Salt Lake on the eastern fringes of the city were arrested on the charge of discrimination against guests on religious grounds, a senior officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said.

The trio was detained on Monday evening for interrogation on the basis of a complaint lodged with the Bidhannagar East police station by the madrasa teachers who had come from Malda district for some official work at Bikash Bhavan, which houses the state Education Department, he said. "After we made entries in the register of the DL 39 guest house around 6 am on Monday, we were made to wait for three hours for rooms. Then, we were told that no room was available despite us showing them the documents of our pre- booking of three rooms. We were then allotted three rooms for an hour at the nearby CL 164 guest house. Around 11 am, they asked us to immediately vacate the rooms without citing any reason," Mohammad Obaidur Rahman, one of the teachers, told reporters.

Shikshak Oikyo Mukto Manch, an association of madrasa teachers in the state, has filed a separate police complaint. "In our Srirampur Madrasa in Malda, the majority of the teachers and the staffers are Hindus. The behaviour of the guest house employees has caused deep anguish to all of us," another teacher, Sadek Ali, said. The guest house authorities, on the other hand, said alternative arrangements were made for the madrasa teachers as no room was available at DL 39 guest house and there was a booking of another group at CL 164, which is why they were asked to leave. They claimed the staffers had not discriminated against the guests on religious grounds and promised to refund a part of the pre-booking amount.