The Life Insurance Corporation of India lodged a complaint with New Alipore police station on Saturday, alleging the ground on which Suruchi Sangha organises its Durga Puja was illegally occupied and demanding its return to the public-sector company.

The 21-cottah ground where the club organises its big-ticket Durga Puja — under the patronage of former Trinamool minister Aroop Biswas and his brother Swarup — is adjacent to the police station.

Some LIC officials said Suruchi Sangha and its puja organisers have been illegally using this ground since 2008.

Multiple attempts to reclaim the encroached-on land have yielded no results, they said. On one occasion, when officials lodged a police complaint alleging the encroachment of government land, they were allegedly asked to settle the matter mutually.

On Saturday afternoon, a team of LIC officials met officers at New Alipore police station and handed them a letter seeking the return of the plot.

“This particular land belongs to the government and has been bought with the taxpayers’ money. We want to reclaim it by removing the encroachers,” a senior LIC official who oversees the company’s estates in the east said.

“Many such land tracts under the LIC have been encroached upon, and we will take strong steps to reclaim them.”

The LIC’s claim comes two days after the police arrested Swarup.

Swarup, president of the now-disbanded Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India, controlled Bengal’s entertainmentindustry.

He was arrested on Thursday night based on a complaint by a makeup artist who accused him and his associates of sexual harassment, threatening her with arms, attempted murder, extortion and criminal intimidation.

On Friday, the Alipore court remanded him in police custody till June 18. An officer said it might take “some more time to break him”.

Sources in the LIC said that in 2008, when some LIC officials went to measure the area where Suruchi Sangha had erected a Durga Puja pandal, they were not allowed entry. Next year, the Biswas brothers allegedly pressured them to sell the land, which the LIC officials said the public sector unit declined.

An LIC official said on Saturday: “According to a resolution, the LIC can’t sell the land outright but can develop it and then sell or let it out. The money received is distributed among policyholders as a bonus.”

In the midst of the land row in 2010, Aroop, then the puja committee president and Trinamool leader, had denied the charges levelled against the two brothers. He had said the LIC wanted to donate the land — a claim that the PSU later denied, saying there was no reason why the LIC would want to donate it.

On Saturday, no one from Suruchi Sangha was ready to speak.

A day after a mob vandalised the club building in Block M of New Alipore, fresh posters surfaced saying the vandalism was a reflection of the people’s “apathy for the Biswases”.

Senior police officers said they would first read the LIC’s letter of complaint and then take necessary steps.

“The immediate concern is maintaining law and order in the area under the jurisdiction of the police station. Our superior officers will take a final call,” a senior police officer said.