With the Central Bureau of Investigation finally deciding to zero in on the Bengal police administration to find its role in the alleged cover-up of the multi-crore Sharada chit fund scam the Agency has sent notices to two senior police officers who were involved in the investigation of the Rs 2,500 crore ponzy scam that burst in the face of the Mamata Banerjee Government followed by a host of other similar rip-offs.
Two CID Dy SPs Shankar Chakrabarty and Dilip Hazra have been asked by the central agency to appear for interrogation, sources said.
While Hazra is a retired officer of the Economic Offence Wing of the CID, Chakrabarty is currently posted in the same branch sources said adding they could be asked to furnish details of the investigation process and recoveries till the case was transferred in CBI’s handfollowing a Supreme Court order.
The summoning of the two officers first from police administration assumes importance against sustained demand from a section of the opposition for interrogation of top police officials who had allegedly helped tampering vital evidences like CCTV footage, a reported “red diary” of prime accused and Sharada chief Sudipto Sen etc.
There are reports that at least two senior IPS officers who were leading the probe team then and later rewarded with plum posts by the State Government could be summoned after their lesser colleagues had been quizzed.
“It is important to know about the alleged disappearance of a red diary — containing names of Sen’s beneficiaries — which has been referred to by many employees of the Sharada company, evidences
including CCTV footages and of course some vital information preserved inside a locker of a nationalized bank at Salt lake hurriedly broken and taken custody of by the State police before the CBI could get hold of it,” said a senior Congress leader who had fought the case in the court adding only police officers probing the case before it was taken up by the CBI could provide information about that.
The State has in the past one month seen increased pace in investigation in both Sharada and Narada cases with senior Ministers and MPs being summoned by Enforcement Directorate and CBI in quick succession
The Thursday’s development takes place a day after former Bengal Minister Madan Mitra was grilled by the CBI in the Narada pay off case where he was purportedly seen accepting cash from a sting journalist who posed as prospective investor in the State.
Before him others like MPs Sougato Roy, Mukul Roy, Aparupa Poddar, Prasun Banerjee, Kakoli Ghoshdastidar, Sultan Ahmed and Ministers, Subroto Mukherjee, Suvendu Adhikary, Sovan Chatterjee and others were quizzed in quick succession.