Saradha chit fund case: CBI grills Kolkata Police chief, former TMC MP in Shillong

Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar and former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kunal Ghosh are being questioned at the CBI office in Kolkata in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam.

The questioning of Mr. Kumar, as per the directions of the Supreme Court, continued for the second day on February 10.

The Kolkata Police chief was quizzed for nearly nine hours on February 9 by three senior CBI officers about his alleged role in tampering of crucial evidence in the case, officials said.

Mr. Kumar had led the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to probe the Saradha scam before the case was handed over to the CBI by the apex court.

Mr. Ghosh, who arrived here shortly after 10 a.m., sought blessings of goddess Saraswati at a pandal, barely 100 meters from the CBI office, before entering the highly secured office of the investigating agency at Oakland.

“I have no comments [to make]. I have been asked to attend a hearing at this office. All along I have been cooperating with the investigating agency. So I came to attend it,” he told mediapersons before entering the CBI office.

The former TMC MP was arrested in 2013 in the Saradha ponzi scam and has been out on bail since 2016. The CBI is likely to confront him with Mr. Kumar.

Mr. Ghosh had implicated BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was once the right hand man of Ms. Banerjee, and 12 others in the Saradha scam.

The Supreme Court had directed Mr. Kumar on February 5 to appear before the CBI and “faithfully” cooperate in the investigation of cases arising out of the Saradha chit fund scam.

The court chose Shillong as the neutral meeting place “to avoid all unnecessary controversy” and made it clear that Mr. Kumar would not be arrested.

The CBI had moved the Supreme Court after its officials were thwarted by Kolkata Police when they had gone to Mr. Kumar’s official residence in Kolkata to question him on February 3.

Ms. Banerjee had rushed to the spot and had staged a three-day ‘Save the Constitution’ sit-in against the CBI move and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah of plotting a ‘coup’.

The Central investigating agency had said that its officials had wanted to question Mr. Kumar to plug the holes in the Saradha chit fund case investigation as he was supposed to be in possession of certain key documents as a member of the SIT.