Grilled by the CBI recently in the Saradha scam, former Director General of Assam Police (DGP) Shankar Barua on Wednesday committed suicide by shooting himself at his residence here.
“Barua was not keeping well and he was admitted to a local hospital on September 13. He was released from the hospital on Wednesday and came home at Barowari locality in Guwahati around 11.20 am. He shot himself in the head around 12 noon,” said Diganta Barman, one of his neighbours. Barua was taken to a hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead.
“We have already started the investigation. I have examined the place of occurrence,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (City) AP Tiwari. He said that post-mortem had been conducted and the police are waiting for the report.
The CBI had raided Barua’s house and checked his bank accounts on August 28 in connection with the Saradha scam. The Central agency had also raided the houses of former Assam Ministers Himanta Biswa Sarma, Ajnan Dutta and singer-turned-filmmaker Sadananda Gogoi. The CBI, which was entrusted by the Supreme Court to probe the multi-crore scam, recently arrested Gogoi. He is being quizzed by the CBI in Kolkata.
Prior to August 28, the CBI raided the house of Manoranjana Sinh, former wife of veteran Congress leader Matang Sinh and the owner of Guwahati-based-now-defunct television channel, Frontier TV.
Son of former Assam IGP Bhabani Barua, Shankar Barua, was a 1974-batch IPS officer. Barua assumed the charge of Assam DGP on July 2009 and retired on January 2012.
In the Saradha scam, hundreds of investors in Assam lost their hard-earned money and many of the agents of Saradha committed suicide after the company failed to return the money to the investors.
Saradha group had started several projects in Assam, including a biscuit factory in Dhubri district and an English language newspaper. While the biscuit factory never took off, the newspaper got closed down after one and half years of its launch.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had earlier said that his Government had handed over to the CBI the probe into 15 chit fund cases, including that of Saradha. "Out of the 15 cases, the CBI took up two cases only," the Chief Minister said.