Bengal Transport Minister Madan Mitra on Friday dropped a political bombshell incriminating three senior CPI(M) leaders in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam hours before he was remanded to two-week jail custody by the designated ACJM court.
Mitra had for the past one week been in the custody of CBI after he was arrested early this month upon the basis of “strong evidences of his direct role in the scam.” Mitra told the mediapersons about his statements given to the CBI where “I gave the names of a series of CPI(M) leaders who are involved in the scam.” When asked about the names he said, “I have given the names of their senior leaders like Md Salim, Sujan Chakrabarty and Rabin Deb all of whom are involved in the scam and all of whom should be questioned by the CBI.”
On what was his interrogators’ response after he divulged the names of the Marxist leaders Mitra said, “they are not calling these leaders for interrogation because they belong to the CPI(M).” Reacting rather sharply to Mitra’s media statement, Md Salim a CPI(M) MP said, “Madan Mitra’s statement will expose the Trinamool Congress in a bigger way because till now they were known as cheats and thieves but now there will be no doubt left in the minds of the people that they are big liars also.”
His former lok Sabha colleague Sujan Chakrabarty quoting “my own sources” said that Mitra had in fact implicated the topmost leadership of his party. “He has in fact taken the name of persons as high as Mamata Banerjee but he is afraid to divulge that in public. So he is telling a different story before the media,” he said, adding “his today’s statement will help the CBI to go deeper into the probe. let everyone be grilled and let the truth come out. But in any case the money stolen from the poorest of people has to be returned and we will go any distance to ensure that people like Madan Mitra are made to return that money.”
Questioning Mitra’s statement High Court advocate Srinjay Sengupta said, “such statements have little evidentiary value if one does not implicate himself while accusing others. If you say that ‘I am innocent and X, Y, Z are thieves’ then the statement has no value. For that you have to say ‘I committed the crime along with X, Y, Z.’” Congress leader and advocate Arunaba Ghosh wondered “why Madan Mitra did not divulge their names earlier” or for that matter “what the State-controlled SIT was doing while conducting the probe in the initial months.”
In the court Mitra’s lawyers pleaded for bail upon health grounds saying he was suffering from hypertension and could suffer heart attack any point in time. However, the CBI lawyers objected to the bail saying Mitra was a powerful Minister which was quite evident from the number of his supporters that were assembling in the court shouting slogans in his name during his production.
“We can gauge his power and clout by the kind of influence he exercised during his stay in the CBI custody,” the CBI counsel said, adding Mitra would be in a position to influence the probe which was being conducted under the orders of the Supreme Court. After a marathon hearing of more than two hours, the ACJM court remanded him to two-week jail custody. Meanwhile, another jailed Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh once again fell ill on Friday and was admitted in the jail hospital. He was suffering from lung infection, sources said.