In a sudden development in which the ruling Trinamool Congress sources saw Narendra Modi Government’s alleged politics of vendetta, the Central Bureau of Investigation has asked four senior IPS officers of the Bengal cadre to appear before it in connection with the Sharada chit fund case.
An e-mail to this effect has been sent to the Bengal Director General of Police Virendra, CBI sources said though there was no immediate reaction from the DGP’s side.
The four senior IPS officers are Kolkata Commissioner of Police Rajiv Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police Vineet Goyal, Inspector General of Police (Railways) T Basu and former DIG CID Pallab Kanti Basu.
While Kumar and Goyal could not be contacted the other two officers said they had no information about the development.
In the mailed communiqué to the State DGP, the CBI has asked the stated officers to report their presence latest by August 24, sources said adding the Central agency had after repeated reminders failed to obtain “crucial evidences” that had earlier been seized by the State Special Investigation
Team of which the foursome were leading members.
In the list of “crucial evidences” are some pen-drives, CDs, a red diary apparently belonging to the jailed Sharada chief Sudipto Sen that allegedly contained the names of beneficiaries of the multi-crore chit fund case.
Many skeletons could tumble out of the cupboard if the top police officers started speaking on the case, sources said, referring to a Calcutta Police Gazette report dated April 2013. According to the stated report an SIT was formed under then Bidhannagar Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar for investigating the chit fund scam that had robbed about 27 lakh people.
Names of a number of State politicians had figured in the scam for giving direct support to Sharada boss who was subsequently arrested from Sonmarg in Kashmir the same year.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool leadership termed the CBI action as “another attempt to malign a performing Government.”
A Kolkata-based senior leader of the party and a minister said “when the BJP has seen that they cannot grab power by creating communal divisions or by performance, when defeat is staring directly in their face they have discovered new ways to harass the Government and the Trinamool leadership.”
Another leader and an MlA also from Kolkata said the CBI initiative was a part of Narnedra Modi Government’s “dirty plans to malign the dedicated police officers of the Government so that they can be threatened into making false statements. But no amount of arm-twisting can bring us down because the people of the State are with us and any attempt to destabilize the popular Government will be met with political resistance.”