In the rough and tumble of the syndicate ecosystem in Rajarhat-New Town, the one man nobody dared dump was Dumpy.

That was until Thursday, when a contractor named Anup Kumar Sharma "felt emboldened" to go to police against the man who allegedly controls 150-odd syndicates in New Town, Rajarhat and Gopalpur.

Dumpy, whose real name is Shahanowaj Ali Mondal (previously mentioned in Metro as Shah Nawaz Ali Mondal), is the councillor of Ward 4 and chairman of Borough 1 of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. But what makes the 33-year-old feared is his alleged syndicate fief, managed through a "Central Syndicate" to which every player pays a cut.

"You have to meet Dumpy or one of his aides to be able to start any construction activity in the Rajarhat-New Town belt. You can't bargain on the rates offered by his men for supply of construction materials. And there is no question of protesting either," said a realtor building a residential complex in the area.

In Sharma's case, his encounter with the councillor's men was after acquiring a property near Chinar Park in New Town. The gang allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh from the civil contractor, a resident of Hatiara near Baguiati.

Sharma admitted that he wouldn't have dared file a police complaint against Dumpy had chief minister Mamata Banerjee not prodded police to arrest Salt Lake councillor Anindya Chatterjee on the basis of an extortion FIR filed two weeks earlier.

"Dumpy wields immense clout in our area. I mustered the courage to file a complaint at Airport police station on July 21 only because the police had showed the spine to arrest a sitting Trinamul councillor of the Bidhannagar Municipal corporation and gone after several known syndicate operatives," he said.

Dumpy contested the allegation that he or his men had asked for Rs 10 lakh. He also denied knowing Sharma. "How can I demand money from a person if I don't even know him?" he told Metro.

According to realtors working in Rajarhat-New Town, Dumpy needn't know anyone directly. The syndicates he allegedly controls ensure that his writ runs in every piece of real estate being developed in the neighbourhood.

More than 50 syndicate operatives have been rounded up by Bidhannagar police in New Town, Rajarhat, Dum Dum and Baguiati in the two weeks since councillor Chatterjee's arrest.

According to a police officer working on the Dumpy case, several of those arrested so far have admitted to owing allegiance to him or being members of clubs he is known to patronise.

Dumpy's father used to make a living hawking bakery items from a cart while he was just another youth dreaming big until 2011, when Sabyasachi Dutta was elected the Rajarhat-New Town MLA. Dumpy's fortunes changed after that.

"From then on, he would take a fixed percentage of money just to allow construction on a plot of land in the area. Then he would ask the builder to purchase all materials from him," a contractor said.

MLA Dutta said on Friday that he knew Dumpy as the chairman of Borough 1. "I don't know about the case against him. So I shouldn't comment," he added.