Jose Ramirez Barreto celebrates after scoring one of his goals at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: If East Bengal had issued a warning to their arch rivals with a 6-2 victory over Mohammedan Sporting ahead of the Derby clash, Mohun Bagan showed they were ready for the challenge with a 7-0 demolition of Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) in the Premier Division on Wednesday.

Jose Ramirez Barreto scored a brace while Lalkamal Bhowmick, P.C. Lalawmpuia, Dharamjit Singh and S. Venkatesh netted one each. CPT’s misery was complete when a hasty clearance by Prasanta Sarkar landed in his own goal.

This was Mohun Bagan’s biggest victory in the Calcutta Football League after their 8-0 rout of Bata in 1978.

Everything fell in place for Mohun Bagan from the start. With Barreto and Lalawmpuia dictating terms upfront, the fragile CPT midfield and defence struggled to keep at bay the sea of attacks. CPT’s woes were compounded by the ineptitude of their goalkeepers — Sandip Guha misjudged the flight a couple of times and substitute Amar Deb was no better.

The hardworking Lalkamal got good support from James Singh and Venkatesh in the midfield. But it was Barreto’s brilliance that gave Mohun Bagan the lead in the 28th minute. With two defenders in close proximity, he unleashed a scorching right-footed volley on the half turn that left the goalie stranded.

Ten minutes later, another superb Lalkamal volley from 24 yards fetched Mohun Bagan their second goal. Barreto made it 3-0 when he headed in Dharmajit’s centre from the right.

The fourth goal was a gift from goalkeeper Guha. He made a mess of a James cross and Lalawmpuia nodded in.

One expected Mohun Bagan — up 4-0 at half-time — to take things a bit easy after change of ends. But Barreto and Co. were in no such mood. Dharamjit pounced on another goalkeeper error, while Venkatesh struck with a long-ranger. In between, the CPT goal had two close calls.

TEAMS

Mohun Bagan: Sangram Mukherjee (Shilton Paul, 61), Habibur Rehman, Peter Siddiqui, Peter Odafa, Rauf Khan, James Singh, Lalkamal Bhowmick, S. Venkatesh (M. Sudheesh, 72), Dharamjit Singh, Jose Barreto (Ishfaq Ahmed, 66), P.C. Lalawmpuia

CPT: Sandip Guha (Amar Deb, 45), Prasanta Sarkar, Rabindranath Karmakar, Simanta Das, Parimal Ghosh, Souvik Biswas, Mark Dennis Afam, Swarup Dey, Sanjit Saha, Sujit Dey, Chukwukere Henry

Referee: Rathin Mukherjee.