Jailed Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh on Monday told a city court that he had specific information to show that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sat on the top of the chit fund pyramid and urged for a direction to the CBI to get his statements recorded in that context.
The Bankshall Court hearing the case directed the CBI to record Ghosh’s statement in jail.
While deposing before the court, Ghosh, a journalist-turned-MP, who had served as the CEO of a Saradha channel, told the court that he had accessed “some new information specific to the chit fund case” urging the court that he be “allowed to get my statements recorded before the CBI.”
He added that “the Chief Minister is the biggest beneficiary of the chit fund scam as she has derived the maximum benefit from its media networks.” He said he could “provide the new information that I have with me if I am questioned by the CBI.”
Critical of the State Government which was using its power to afford all kinds of VVIP facilities to those who were in power, Ghosh without naming arrested State Minister Madan Mitra said, “people who have power and the capacity to tamper with evidences are spending time in ‘hotels’ (apparently VVIP wards of State-run SSKM Hospital) while we are being forced to languish in jails.”
Mitra who had earlier been arrested and remanded to two-week jail custody after being grilled by the CBI for a week or so did not spend a single night in jail and was currently in the VVIP Woodburn Ward of the SSKM Hospital, where he was admitted with reported cardiac conditions.
Curiously Woodburn ward did not have facilities for treating cardiac complications. It was also reported that Mitra was using cell phones, getting home-cooked foods and meeting selected people despite being in the judicial custody and despite the fact that he being an under-trial did not deserve such kind of facilities.
It was also curious to note as to how the jail authorities dispatched Mitra to SSKM within an hour of him being brought to the Alipore correctional home and without getting him treated by the jail doctors.
The Opposition was also questioning the delay in formation of a medical board to ascertain his condition. He was admitted to the Hospital on Friday evening.
Reacting to Ghosh’s submission in the court, BJP State president Rahul Sinha said the jailed Trinamool had thus far suppressed facts as he knew revelation of such facts could put him bigger trouble. “Now he is willing to share the information because he has realised that the bigger conspirators should not be allowed to go scot free.”
Meanwhile, in a new development that could give the Saradha scam a newer twist, Debjani Mukherjee, the number two in the Saradha company, had reportedly told the CBI that Sen had plans to slip into Pakistan occupied Kashmir after his chit fund empire bombed.
He had in fact been in touch with a former Saradha staff Riaz, a resident of Kashmir who was trying to arrange for his flight to the PoK, CBI sources said refusing to divulge more details.
“Investigations are on in this regard,” sources said.