A retired Military Intelligence (MI) officer’s tale about a missing treasure of Rs300 crore and about 300 kg of gold, that was at one time alleged to be stacked in the cellar of a Kali temple in Assam, led the Supreme Court on Wednesday to direct the Centre to examine the matter and submit a report by May 6.
Baffled by the details given in a PIl filed by the retired Army officer Manoj Kumar Kaushal, the Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur, Justices R Banumathi and UU lalit, decided to entrust the matter to Additional Solicitor-General (ASG) Maninder Singh, asking him to follow up the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Jaspreet Rai said the petitioner’s interest was to highlight information received by him in public interest, in order to ensure that the missing treasure did not land in the wrong hands, as he suspected the anti-nationals might have looted it.
“He (petitioner) is making startling revelations. ASG must pursue the matter with MHA as he was part of MI and give a report by May 6,” the Bench observed.
Kaushal claimed that on May 10, 2015, one of his former informers got in touch with him and told him that in the cellar of a Kali temple situated in Rani Tea Garden near Dispur, Guwahati, 300 kg of gold, unaccounted money to the tune of Rs300 crore and two AK-47 rifles were lying unclaimed. Kaushal, who served in Assam between 2006 and 2009, had retired from the MI in 2009.
The tea garden, according to the petitioner, belonged to one Mridul Bhattacharya, president of the Tea Garden Association, who died under mysterious circumstances in 2002. Since then, the wealth had allegedly been lying in the temple unclaimed. The local contact shared the information with the Army, which decided to recover the treasure on June 1, 2014.
When the Army unit reached the spot, they were shocked to find that a deep hole had been dug near the temple, and the treasure had been moved out. The petitioner visited the spot later and took photographs and gathered Intelligence on possible suspects. In his petition, he named 13 people whose call detail records showed they were in touch with each other since the time the theft was thought to have taken place, and were diverting huge amounts of money through their bank accounts.
Interestingly, despite reporting the matter to the Inspector-General of Police, law and Order, Assam, the petitioner got no cooperation, giving rise to suspicions of involvement of the police top brass in removing the treasure.
The petitioner’s lawyer feared that there was the possibility of the money being siphoned off by anti-national and insurgent groups like the UlFA, since the owner of the tea estate used to pay these groups protection money by collecting huge sums from tea garden owners.