The Criminal Investigation Department (CID)sleuths armed with the court order on Tuesday conducted search Operation in former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh’s two lockers at a nationalised bank on Southern Avenue.

The CID officers also sought police remand of arrested former Daspur OC and one of former’s aides in connection with cash-forgold scam. CID officers reportedly have seized huge amount of valuables from one of the lockers after search was conducted in two lockers of former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh from a nationalised bank on Southern Avenue on Tuesday.

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Though the CID officers are tight-lipped about the development. sources, however, indicated as much though the quantum of recovery could not be verified so far. Meanwhile, the state CID tightening further noose on Ghosh and her husband MAV Raju probing extortion as well as disproportionate assets case on Tuesday in the presence of the latter and his counsel had conducted search in two accounts at a Southern Avenue branch of a nationalised bank to unearth further documents and cash and valuables from there.

Earlier, in the day, the sleuths on Tuesday grilled Raju for three hours on unaccounted wealth and disproportionate assets case. According to CID sources, the recovery so far is just a tip on the iceberg in the cash-forgold scam.The sources also said the scam might exceed Rs 1200 crore.

Ms Ghosh in an audio message to a section of the media from an undisclosed place stated that as she hails from a landlord family, her parents gifted her 75 tola of gold during her wedding. That had been notified with the state government in her assessment report back in 1994.

Meanwhile, the former Daspur officer-in-charge Pradip Rath, who was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials yesterday in connection with the Daspur fraud case, has been remanded in CID custody on Tuesday.

The CID officials on Tuesday produced him before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) court in Ghatal in West Midnapore and the judge after hearing pleas remanded him in CID custody for six days. Rath is the fifth police officer to get arrested in two separate cases, in which the name of former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh is allegedly involved.

He was officer-incharge of Daspur police station when the traders were cheated. Soon after the transfer of Bharati Ghosh to the post of CO of the Third Battalion of SAP, Rath was also transferred to Belda police station as OC. He was later closed by the SP, West Midnapore when the CID started investigating the case and his name was cropped in connection with the Daspur fraud case.