The Central Bureau of Investigation have managed to access some e-mailed transactions between senior Trinamool Congress leaders purportedly involved in the Narada pay off case and Mathew Samuel the CEO of Narada News portal, sources said adding the Agency would now rely on the contents of the e-mails to nail the tainted leaders.
With a majority of leaders interrogated till now having feigned “electoral purpose” for accepting cash from the Narada journalist who faked as a prospective investor in the State to grease the Trinamool leaders palms in a video-graphed sting operation the investigators have armed themselves with the e-mails exchanged between the Netas and the sting journalist, during subsequent interrogations, sources said.
Earlier, Trinamool MPs Sultan Ahmed and Kakoli Ghoshdastidar had told her interrogators that they had accepted money from Samuel as electoral fund. A number of senior Trinamool leaders including Suvendu Adhikary, Madan Mitra, Firhad Hakim, Subroto Mukherjee, Sovan Chaterjee all ministers and Sultan Ahmed, Kakoli Ghoshdastidar, Prasun Banerjee, Aparupa Poddar, all Ministers and SMH Mirza an IPS officer were purportedly seen accepting money from the sting journalist in Narada video tapes.
Meanwhile, Samuels whose name mysteriously cropped up in Bengal Police files in a separate case of extortion soon after the Sharada pay off case is known to have demanded reimbursement for his trips to Kolkata in case he is summoned again by the State police.
The Kolkata police have once again summoned Samuel for interrogation.
The Delhi-based journalist who responded to the summons through an e-mail demanding reimbursement for future trips to Kolkata in case he had to appear before the police for interrogation, sources said.
Samuel had earlier alleged “unnecessary harassment by the police in a “fabricated case” of extortion framed by the Bengal Government as a retaliatory measure against the Sharada expose. The senior journalist had earlier complained that in the name of interrogating him in a different case the Kolkata Police were asking him questions regarding the Narada expose.