Great Eastern Hotel employees raise banners of protest at an earlier agitation. A Telegraph picture

A day after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee?s government decided to close down Great Eastern Hotel by September 30, the management on Tuesday downed shutters of its oldest, 50-seater bar-cum-restaurant, Shah-en-Shah, amid protest from the 400-odd employees.

?Though the hotel?s closure is a fait accompli, the sudden closing of the bar-cum-restaurant has taken us by surprise. The management cannot take such a decision on its own without taking into account the say of the employees? unions,? complained Atiar Rahman, general secretary of the Intuc-led Great Eastern Hotel Staff and Workers? Association.

?Members of a band, who used to play at the restaurant in the evenings, will have to return disheartened tonight, as they are still unaware of the closure notice,? alleged an Intuc leader.

Equally aggrieved were members of the Citu-led Great Eastern Hotel Employees? and Workers? Union. ?It?s just the beginning of an end. The closure of the restaurant will render those employed there jobless,? said Pijushkanti Roychowdhury, working president of the union.

The government?s decision to close down the 165-year-old state-run hotel by September 30 has also put the management in a dilemma. ?We accepted advance bookings till mid-October under the impression that the hotel would be closed by October 31. If the government decides to close it by September 30, we will be left with no option but to cancel those bookings,? said an official.

Since Tuesday morning, customers made frantic calls to the hotel to inquire about the status of their bookings for various functions in October. Many of them accused the management of ?misguiding? them about the hotel?s date of closure.

Mahammed Islam, who has worked in Shah-en-Shah since the early 70s, recounted how popular its Mughlai cuisine was in those days.

?The restaurant used to draw better crowds than Jade Garden, famous for its Chinese food,? he claimed.

Hotel member-secretary and chief executive Jagannath Bag, however, said the restaurant had been running up losses almost every night for the past couple of months. ?The income has come down to a meagre Rs 1,000 per night,? he rued.