CBI to quiz four IPS officials in Saradha scam
Kolkata, Aug 22 (IBNS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has wrote to the West Bengal police chief that the Central investigation agency wanted to interrogate four senior IPS officials of state cadre, including Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, in connection with its ongoing probe into multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, officials said on Wednesday.
Sources in the CBI said that the probe agency on Monday sent an email to state police's Director General (DG), Virendra, informing that its investigators wanted to quiz Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, city police's Additional Commissioner (I) Vineet Goyal, Inspector General of West Bengal Police (Railways) Tamal Basu and another IPS officer Pallab Kanti Ghosh, who retired as the Special Additional and Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police's Intelligence unit in 2016.
These four police officials were asked to appear at CBI's office at CGO Complex in Kolkata's Salt Lake area between Aug 21 and Aug 24, reports said.
"In connection with our ongoing probe into Saradha financial scandal, we want to question four IPS officials of Bengal cadre- Rajiv Kumar, Vineet Goyal, Tamal Basu and Pallab Kanti Ghosh (retd), who were the then Commissioner of Bidhannagar City Police, IG of West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Special Superintendent of Police at state CID and Kolkata Police's Joint Commissioner (Crime) respectively," a CBI official told IBNS.
"These top cops were among 12 IPS members of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was formed by state government in April, 2013 to probe Saradha chit fund fiasco and that is why we want to quiz them," the official added.
From opposition parties' leaders to arrested Saradha directors often alleged that officials of state government's SIT misplaced several evidences and hided few very important documents, including pen drives, hard discs and a 'red diary', which were seized from Saradha Group's head office at Salt Lake's Midland Park during raid.
Besides interrogating two SIT members, Shankar Bhattacharya and Dilip Hazra, in September, 2017, the CBI had served notice to Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar twice last year, first one in August and another in November, asking him to appear before its investigators.
Rajiv Kumar avoided both the summons and in October last year wrote a letter to CBI chief Alok Kumar Verma alleging that the federal agency's notice to him was politically motivated and the investigating officer of CBI had summoned him just to satisfy a political leader.
The fight between CBI and Kolkata Police as well West Bengal Police came to public after the Central probe agency moved to the Supreme Court alleging that local police, which had started investigation into the ponzi fraud first, was not cooperating with them.
Meanwhile, two days after the email was sent, CBI officials on Wednesday claimed that they have not received any response yet from the state police chief.
Neither senior officials of West Bengal police nor the four IPS officers, who have been summoned, agreed to speak on the issue.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
