A day after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered police investigation into the Narada sting operation the Kolkata Police on Sunday set up a Special Investigation Team led by Commissioner of Police Rajeev Kumar. He will be assisted among others by senior IPS officer Vishal Garg and other cyber crime cell officials, sources said.
The police acted with electric speed and an SIT was set up within hours of Ratna Chattopadhyay wife of Kolkata Mayor and State Minister Sovan Chatterjee filing an FIR against the Narada News at the New Market Police Station close on the heels of Chief Minister’s declaration at a Trinamool Congress organisational meeting on Saturday.
Sovan Chatterjee was among the top Trinamool Congress big guns, who featured in the Narada videos allegedly accepting cash — and swiftly wrapping it up with a towel — from a Narada journalist, posing as a prospective investor.
Other Trinamool heavy duties, who were shown taking money were Firhad Hakim, Subroto Mukherjee, Suvendu Adhikary(then an MP) and sitting MPs Sultan Ahmed, Saugato Roy, Kakoli Ghoshdastidar,Aparupa Poddar. A senior IPS officer was also seen taking money from the Narada journalist.
The Kolkata Police Detective Department lodged an FIR in the wake of the police complaint filed by Ratna Chatterjee. The police have slapped cases against Narada CEO under IPC sections 500 (defamation) 505(statement to create public mischief) 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 171-G (false statements in connection to elections) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), sources said.
The police were planning to summon Narada CEO Mathew Sammuel along with the video footages and camera with which it were shot, sources said.
Apparently setting the tone of the said investigation the Chief Minister had on Saturday said that the “whole issue should be investigated the people of Bengal need to know the real intention behind this ‘conspiracy’.”
Insisting that this was a step to malign a Government, a party its politicians and insult the people of Bengal, particularly before the elections the Chief Minister said “why should Bobby Hakim or Suvendu demand bribesIJ Are they beggarsIJ It has to be investigated why these persons came and offered money to our menIJ”
However, senior Calcutta High Court advocate and former Kolkata Mayor Bikash Bhattacharya said “it seems that the Chief Minister has roundly conceded the truth behind the footage” while BJP’s JP Majumdar wondered “why the persons who offered the money were instantly nothanded over to the police by the Ministers and the MPs. This means that there was a complacency.”
Majumdar also said even if the investigation order stands judicial scrutiny as already a case is being heard in the High Court the people of Bengal would not believe in the probe conducted by Rajeev Kumar who had unsuccessfully investigated the Sharada chit fund case.
Election Commission of India had removed Kumar as the Kolkata CP following complaints of political bias by the Opposition. After Banerjee came back to power he was reinstated as the Kolkata top cop.
Giving his reaction former Supreme Court Judge Ashok Ganguli said the order of investigation itself illegal as the case was alreadysubjudice in the High Court which had procured the hardwares used for the shooting and handed them over for forensic tests.
The case was likely to be heard in a couple of week’s time, sources said.
Incidentally the Trinamool; Congress had in the beginning rejected Narada footage as false and fake. The Government also challenged a PIl filed in the High Court seeking an investigation into the case.