Residences of two former Gogoi Mins among 22 premises searched
The CBI on Thursday conducted searches in connection with the multi-crore inter-State Saradha chit fund scam at 22 locations in Assam, West Bengal and Mumbai, including premises of two former Assam Ministers, a former Director-General of Police (DGP) and a noted singer besides eight others.
Separate CBI teams, headed by senior officers from New Delhi conducted searches at the residences of Assam’s former Health and Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, former Transport Minister Anjan Dutta, former DGP Shankar Baruah and prominent singer-filmmaker Sadananda Gogoi.
The CBI teams also raided the office of TV channel News live, owned by Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife Riniki Bhuyan in Guwahati, and two other premises, including a biscuit factory, in western Assam’s Dhubri town. Set up by Saradha in 2010, the factory was inaugurated by Sarma, who recently resigned from Gogoi’s Cabinet.
While singer-turned-filmmaker Sadananda Gogoi is known to be close to Sarma, Dutta is a Gogoi loyalist and owns an Assamese daily that had tied up with the Saradha group briefly. In Assam, the CBI also searched the premises of promoter of Brahmaputra Jungle Resort Tridib Sarma, the sources said. In a coordinated action, the CBI carried out searches at 14 locations in Assam, including the premises of Sarma and Dutta, agency sources said in New Delhi.
In Kolkata, the agency searched the premises of one Bapi Karim, who was a personal assistant to a Minister, industrialists Sajjan and Sandhir Agarwal, a former IPS officer Deben Biswas and one Asif Khan.
The CBI also searched the house of Bapi Karim a Trinamool leader and former CA of State Transport Minister Madan Mitra and reportedly seized various incriminating documents.
Karim considered a powerful link man in the Trinamool scheme of things was grilled by more than 8 hours in two phases even as a CBI official said, “His not giving answers to some questions while some of his statements are inconsistent. We may call him again.”
The name of Madan Mitra who was now admitted in a city hospital with chest problems had repeatedly come up in the media for his reported link with Saradha kingpin Sudipto Sen.
According to sources, CBI had come to know that Karim used to frequent Saradha headquarters at Midland Park. “He normally came after 8 pm and left with some packets,” a sources quoting other witnesses grilled by the CBI said, adding Karim was on Thursday asked to reveal whether Mitra had any dealings with Sen and how despite being a CA he could own a fleet of cars. The numbers of all the cars had been taken.
He has also been asked whether the two international football matches organised by Madan Mitra who was also the State Sports Minister had any link with Saradha funds.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was speaking at a Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad rally in Kolkata, said his party and the Government was ready to cooperate with the CBI if they probed the scam in a proper manner. Though she would not say what a “proper probe” meant to her, she said, “The CBI is welcome and they will get all cooperation but they should conduct the probe properly.”
The CBI officials as well as the top bureaucrats in Assam, however, remained tight-lipped over the issue and only said that the CBI headquarters in New Delhi will circulate a formal Press note once they wind up the operation.
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi while reacting to the raids conducted by the central agency, said that it was the State Government, which had handed over the chit fund cases to the CBI, including that of Saradha in 2013 much before the Supreme Court entrusted the investigating agency to probe the scam.
Gogoi said that the State Government had handed over the CBI to probe 15 chit fund cases, including that of Saradha. Gogoi said that out of the 15 cases, the CBI took up two cases only. “Much before the apex court asked the CBI to probe the Saradha scam, we had entrusted the investigating agency with the chit fund cases, including that of Saradha,” he said.
“The State Government had handed over the cases to the CBI so that the duped poor investors get back their hard-earned money and those involved in the scam could be brought to book,” he said.
“Nobody should be spared in connection with Saradha and other chit fund scams. The guilty must be punished,” he said.
Sarma was once the most trusted lieutenant of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi until he fell out with him. He had allegedly spearheaded the campaign to dislodge Gogoi.
“The CBI officials examined documents pertaining to ads that Saradha gave us,” said News live executive editor Paragmoni Aditya.
After raiding the residence of Barua, the CBI officials took the former DGP to an SBI branch and examined his bank accounts. Asked by journalists as to why his house has been raided, Barua refused to make any comment.