The pre-Puja knock on the door carries with it the menace of muscle power in several pockets of the city and its adjoining districts.

Friday found retired army officer Subhas Sarkar and his son Abhijeet ? who had been stabbed at their Netaji Pally home in Barasat for refusing to cough up Rs 5,000 as puja subscription ? ?out of danger? at SSKM Hospital, but the shadow of chanda extortion refused to lift from several parts.

One more arrest, for the assault on the Sarkars, was carried out at Netaji Pally on Friday, taking the tally to four.

In quite another part of town, Behala police on Friday hauled up members of a local club after the owner of an audio-video cassette shop, Ganesh Pal, lodged a complaint of being roughed up by them for failing to pay Rs 3,000 as puja subscription.

The club members had allegedly handed over a subscription form on Thursday and asked Pal to do the needful.

When they returned on Friday, Pal pleaded for another day to arrange the sum, but the club members beat him up.

Two persons of a puja committee in Mullickbazar were arrested after a trader of Park Street lodged a complaint that they had forced him to pay Rs 5,000 as subscription.

Another four arrests in connection with forcible Puja subscription were carried out in Baruipur.

The seriousness of the matter was mirrored in the video-conference at Writers? Buildings that director-general of state police Shyamal Dutta held with superintendents of police (SPs) of all districts.

?The SPs were told that they must coordinate with sub-divisional police officers to stop any such puja from being organised,? Chayan Mukherjee, inspector-general (IG) of state police, later said.

Eight puja committees ? four in Burdwan, one in Murshidabad and three in Nadia ? have already been stopped from organising the festival, following complaints of forcible chanda collection.

Superintendent of police (South 24-Parganas) S.N. Gupta said: ?We are appealing to people that if anyone tries to forcefully collect puja subscriptions, the local police station must be alerted immediately so that prompt action can be taken against the offenders.?

This was echoed by deputy commissioner (detective department) Peeyush Pandey: ?We are encouraging people to lodge their complaints for the city police to take action.?

But IG Mukherjee expressed disappointment at not getting the necessary response.