Kolkata, Feb 21 : The Chairman of English Bazar Municipality in West Bengal's Malda district on Friday filed a police complaint after receiving extortion messages and calls reportedly from the D-Company.

Malda district police have started an investigation into the matter and enhanced the security arrangements for Municipality Chairman and former state minister Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury.

As per the police complaint filed by Chowdhury, during the last couple of days, he had received two consecutive messages on his mobile phone where the sender claimed to be Pradeep of D-Company and threatened him of eliminating his entire family unless he paid an amount of Rs 20 lakh within 24 hours.

However, Chowdhury said that he considered the messages a prank, Chowdhury claimed, he did not give much importance to them. However, he received a phone call on his mobile on Friday morning and the caller identifying himself as Pradeep from D-Company gave the same threat.

This time, Chowdhury took the message seriously and immediately informed the local police about the entire development. Chowdhury himself had claimed to the media persons that he was not at all scared by the threat call.

"I have faced life threats several times in the past. But as a duty, I informed the police and they are investigating the matter now,' he said.

Meanwhile, BJP's district leadership in Malda claimed that the police should investigate whether the threat call and messages were really from anyone attached to D-Company or from anyone belonging to any rival faction of Trinamool Congress in the district.

However, the Malda police had taken the matter quite seriously, especially against the backdrop of the recent murder of Trinamool municipal councillor Dulal Sarkar a.k.a. Babla, who was shot dead on the open road in broad daylight last month.

Infighting in the state's ruling party in the district being the main reason behind the murder became evident with Trinamool's Malda town President and the party's district Hindi cell chief Narendra Nath Tiwari being identified as the main brain behind the killing. He was subsequently arrested

D-Company is an organised crime syndicate that was founded in Mumbai by notorious gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

/IANS