A member of a Kali Puja committee in south Calcutta was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly demanding Rs 40,000 from a restaurant on Sarat Bose Road as a "donation" to cover the expenses on puja bhog.

Based on a complaint by The Silver Oak restaurant, police arrested the accused and booked him for attempted extortion.

According to an employee of the restaurant, a group of eight had visited The Silver Oak around 5.30pm on Sunday, introducing themselves as members of the Dakshin Kolkata Desh Gourab Sangha at 88 Jatin Das Road.

"One of the men handed us a sheet of paper with a list of materials needed for bhog and asked for a donation of Rs 39,600. When we refused, they threatened us with dire consequences," he said.

Bubun Bhattacharya, who had mentioned his phone number on a piece of paper that the group had left at the restaurant for the management's "reconsideration", was picked up after the restaurant lodged a complaint with Lake police station on Monday.

Office-bearers of the Dakshin Kolkata Desh Gourab Sangha contested the allegation, saying that the arrested person wasn't a member of the club. "There is nobody by that name in our club... It could be someone's nickname, of which we aren't aware. As for the extortion charge, we had only asked the restaurant to donate something. There is no documentary evidence that we demanded Rs 40,000," club secretary Biswajit Das said.

Metro visited the locality on Tuesday and found that Bubun, 37, doesn't live there. "He used to be a resident of the neighbourhood five to six years ago. Now he lives at Subhasgram, in South 24 Parganas. But he has been associated with this Kali Puja for years," a resident said.

The alleged incident is one of many complaints about extortion in the name of subscription, the main source of funds for puja committees across the city. Many more incidents go unreported, apparently because of the political patronage that pujas enjoy.

The Desh Gourab Sangha puja is no exception. The chief patrons of the puja include panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee and Subhra Ghosh, president Pranab Mukherjee's sister-in-law.

"We have no issues with the other puja organisers, who asked for reasonable donations. But Rs 40,000 was too much to shell out. We had to approach the police because we were scared that they would retaliate," said an official at The Silver Oak.