First CBI arrest in Bengal may open Pandora's box
The Central Bureau of Investigations now probing the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam on Wednesday made its first arrest in Bengal by taking into custody a top functionary of East Bengal football club official for his alleged links in the ponzi deal.
Debabrata Sarkar a senior functionary of the soccer club was arrested after five hours of marathon grilling by the CBI sleuths who had raided his house a few days ago — along with the house of a former ADGP — and found incriminating documents including copy of a complaint letter against Saradha kingpin Sudipto Sen written to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and another copy of a letter reportedly written by Sen in 2012 to some top official of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
The CBI which was probing the ‘larger side of the scam’ following a Supreme Court order was also trying to indentify the role of any SEBI official “if at all there is any” in the scam.
CBI sources quoting Sen whom it had quizzed earlier said the Saradha boss had confessed to it of having been repeatedly black-mailed by some ‘influential persons’. He also told the investigating agency that Sarkar had assured him of “managing the SEBI officials as he had good contacts with them.” Sen who was running the multi-crore chit fund show was doing so by defying the SEBI and RBI guidelines.
The agency was trying to find out whether the copy of the letter written by Sen to the SEBI found from Sarkar’s residence was in some way associated with his promise of ‘managing’ the stock market regulating body, insiders said.
On the recovery of the copy of the letter written to the Chief Minister they said that it could well be a part of the ploy devised by the likes of Sarkar to first threaten the Saradha boss and then black mail him. CBI sources said that Sen had confessed of having given more than Rs 5 crore to Sarkar at one point of time. He had also given him Rs 80 lakh on another occasion, sources quoting Sen said.
“Sarkar has been arrested in connection with the scam and he will be presented before a court on Thursday,” a CBI spokesperson said after arresting him.
Inside sources said out of the ‘50 odd people’ in the CBI suspect list it was currently focusing on ‘about 6-8 political persons’ like MPs and Ministers who were closely related or had some kind of role to play in the Saradha scam. The central agency had “enough documentary evidences” in its possession recovered from sustained raids at various places in Kolkata. It was on the basis of these documents that it was planning to quiz the said 6-8 politicians whose “role in the scam is getting clearer like crystal with each passing day.”
The CBI sources also said Sarkar’s arrest could open the proverbial Pandora’s box as “he seems to be hiding more than he is revealing.” Sarkar from whose possession the CBI recovered FDs and other bank statements dated 2012 worth lakhs was a key link that could connect chit fund brass and the political brass, sources said adding coming weeks could witness more such arrests being made.
Meanwhile, the CBI on Wednesday took remand of Sen in a separate case related to Saradha reality business. The two arrests were not unconnected gong by inside reports that the Intelligence agency was planning to interrogate Sarkar and the Saradha boss making them sit face to face.
In fact Sen had while coming out of a Birbhum court where he was produced on Tuesday said that he had many things to reveal to the CBI and that he was eager to meet them “even if it means exemplary punishment for me.”