With an apparent click of his fingers, the Minister now in jail for his alleged role in the Saradha chit fund scam tended to have earned the rare distinction of turning a penitentiary into a Diwan-e-Aam of sorts.
In a scene straight out of Hindi films where dadas-turned-netas serving sentence would hold mass durbars of hardened criminals in jails and get them to do their personal chores, Mitra, the Minister who spent more than half of his jail remand in SSKM Hospital before being sent to the Alipore Central Jail on Sunday morning got dreaded convicts to massage his body before holding a durbar of prisoners and listening to their stated woes.
Prisoners, most of whom were serving life sentence appealed to the Minister to recommend State pardon or get their reduced the top Trinamool neta assured them of doing his bit for them officials said adding the neta even seized a jail official’s cell phone to call up his family members leading the authorities to hurriedly bring a circular asking the staff, including senior officers, to deposit their mobile phones with a designated official outside before entering the jail premises.
This was not enough to cater to the Minister’s demands the doors of his wards were kept open the whole Sunday night, sources said adding they were even forced allow home-food for him. “Dada had chicken kasha and roti on Monday night and was served with bread, omlette, banana and coffee on Monday morning,” an insider said adding seven litres of mineral waters and five newspapers were sent for his personal use.
“If criminals can have such kind of facilities why not a minister! Wondered PCC president Adhir Chowdhury” adding “as the Jail Department is with the State Government Madan Mitra will have no problem in manipulating things from inside.” CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakrabarty said “the court and the CBI should take cognizance of the developments as such powerful men can easily influence the investigation from inside the jail.”
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate probing the Saradha case reportedly threw its glare on the State Government directly questioning the connection between the 2012 Kolkata International Film Festival and Sudipto Sen’s Saradha group.
Sources said the ED had asked the General Manager of a city Five Star hotel to explain the source of money it received on account of hosting a Film Fest party in 2012. The party was allegedly hosted by Saradha Realty money. In fact ED sources said part of the Fest was funded by the Saradha group.