Giving details of an attack and kidnapping attempt on Rathi, the SOPA organized a press conference here wherein the Association spokesperson Rajesh Agrawal alleged that Satyanarayan Rathi, treasurer, SOPA when visited Hotel Landmark Fortune here on Friday evening to hand over a memorandum to the Forward Market Commission (FMC) chairman, BC Khatua who was there to attend a programme of the National Board of Trade (NBOT), the goons of Kailash Sahara forcibly whisked him to another room of the hotel where he was abused and threatened with dire consequences. Thereafter, Rathi was put up in a car but somehow, he managed to come out of their clutches with help of a local media person.

Agrawal informed that the entire incident took place under the very nose of FMC chairman and the industrialist Kailash Sahara. Initially, the FMC chairman was made to believe that the incident took place because of a dispute between a guest and the hotel staff. However, when Khatua came to know about the facts that the person who was whished away from the programme was a SOPA official and was there to submit him a memorandum, he reprimanded the NBOT officials asking them to allow Rathi to meet him.

Rathi who was also present during the press conference, told media persons that he had gone to Hotel Fortune Landmark to meet the FMC chairman and submit him a memorandum regarding grave anomalies being committed at the NBOT at the behest of Kailash Sahara. However, before he could meet the FMC chairman, the `hired goons' of Kailash Sahara, lifted him and threw him to an adjacent room like a gunny bag. Rathi said that soon he was taken out of the hotel and was being made to sit in a car., someone raised an alarm and subsequently, he was released from their clutches to meet the FMC chairman.

SOPA spokesperson Rajesh Agrawal also alleged grave financial irregularities committed by Kailash Sahara in the NBOT through his various companies. In this regard, he said that SOPA had been fighting a relentless battle meeting the authorities concerned to stop the alleged malpractices in the NBOT allegedly committed at the behest of Sahara.

This newspaper tried to contact Kailash Sahara for his version in the whole episode but he was not available for comment. Meanwhile, Indore police have registered a case against Sahara under section 294, 323 and 506.