The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday again questioned Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar and former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh in connection with the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams.
This is the third consecutive day of questioning for Kumar by the CBI and the second day for Ghosh, who was made to sit face-to-face with the police commissioner, on Monday.
“Both of them are being examined and we don’t know how it will long take,” a CBI official said.
Ghosh was arrested on November 2013 in connection with the two chit fund scams and granted interim bail by the Calcutta High Court in 2016.
“They (CBI) have summoned me. I have come here as per the Supreme Court order and I will cooperate with them. The CBI is interrogating the very police officer who grilled me. This is my moral victory,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh had earlier implicated former Union Minister Mukul Roy, who has quit the Trinamool Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, and 12 others in the Saradha chit fund scam.
On Saturday, the CBI interrogated Kumar for eight hours on charges of withholding and tampering important documents.
The Kolkata police chief arrived in Shillong on Friday evening from Kolkata via Guwahati after the Supreme Court, while hearing the matter on Tuesday, directed him to join the CBI probe at a “neutral place” in Shillong.
He was accompanied by three senior state police officers – Additional Police Commissioner Javed Shamim, Special Task Force chief Murlidhar Sharma and CID chief Praveen Kumar Tripathi.
The CBI had sought directions to Kumar to cooperate with the investigation and surrender all the evidence related to the chit fund case, stating that the top cop was a “potential accused”.
The agency has claimed that the Kolkata police chief had destroyed the evidence in the chit fund scam when he headed the SIT. It further said the copies of call records handed over by SIT to CBI were doctored.
An intense drama was witnessed on February 3, when a team of 40-odd CBI officers reached Kumar’s residence, and a team of Kolkata Police officers rushed there to inquire if they had the documents required to question the CP.
Some CBI men were then bundled into police jeeps and taken to the police station.
After the CBI-police face-off, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee began a sit-in in front of the Metro Cinema to protest “insults” faced at the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. She accused both the BJP leaders of organising a “coup” on West Bengal.
(With inputs from IANS)