Salt Lake: A syndicate operator was arrested on Friday night for allegedly threatening to gun down a trader and his family in Salt Lake if they did not pay Rs 2 lakh as Kali Puja subscription.

Sindhu Kundu, 48, a key member of Nabankur Sporting Club, had allegedly called up Purbachal resident Kartick Chandra Karmakar, 66, several times over the past month for subscription.

Kundu has criminal antecedents and been arrested several times in the past for allegedly threatening Salt Lake residents to buy construction material from him at inflated rates.

During the civic polls in 2015, he was seen leading a group of men who allegedly beat up voters to scare them away.

Kundu or his associates allegedly called Karmakar from various numbers at all times of the day to either demand money or threaten him.

"Kundu called me at the start of October and initially demanded Rs 60,000. He kept calling me every day and his demand soared," said Karmakar, who runs a hardware store in Salt Lake's CK market.

When Kundu called Karmakar on Thursday night, he allegedly said: " Taka dao, noyto tomake aar tomar paribarke guli kore mere debo (Pay up or else we will shoot and kill you and your family)."

Karmakar told his son Samaresh about the call. They lodged a complaint with Bidhannagar North police station on Friday evening.

Kundu was picked up from near his "office" in Duttabad late on Friday.

But the threats allegedly did not stop. Some "50 men came to our house and demanded that the complaint be withdrawn", Samaresh said. "They left threatening us."

Kundu has been charged under various sections of the IPC, including Section 387 (putting a person in fear of death or of grievous hurt in order to commit extortion). If convicted, he can be jailed for up to seven years. He was produced in court and sent to three days' police remand. Kundu's lawyer said the section did not apply as no one was injured.