The CBI on Thursday picked up film producer Shrikant Mohta from his office at a Kasba mall after being initially accosted by police and later arrested him in a Rose Valley case.

“Goutam Kundu (owner of the Rose Valley group) had alleged that Mohta of Shree Venkatesh Films had breached a Rs 24-crore contract they had signed for the rights to several SVF films,” a CBI officer said.

Agency sources claimed that Mohta faced charges of gaining from the money Rose Valley is accused of illegally collecting from people in Bengal, Assam and Odisha. “He (Mohta) has been charged with criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy,” an officer said.

An SVF statement denied the accusations.

“Mohta invested a part of the funds in procuring paintings in the name of a film production house,” a CBI officer said without identifying the paintings. The CBI is probing the purchase of several of Mamata Banerjee’s paintings.

Mohta’s arrest drew attention not merely because of his proximity to the Trinamul Congress but also because of the timing of the swoop, which took place less than a week after Mamata organised an Opposition rally in Calcutta.

Asked, a CBI officer dismissed the innuendoes and claimed that Mohta had ignored a series of summonses in the Rose Valley case. The last summons was sent on January 8, he said. The SVF statement cited personal reasons for Mohta’s inability to appear before the CBI this month but added that he had answered summons twice in the past as a witness.

Sources said Mohta would be taken to Bhubaneswar for court production as the Rose Valley case is filed in Odisha.

When a CBI team arrived at Mohta’s office on the 18th floor of Acropolis mall around 11am, it faced resistance from mall and SVF security and was made to wait outside for an hour, agency sources and eyewitnesses said.

“The security people called the local police, who checked our identity and wanted to see the documents (summons) before letting us enter the office,” a CBI officer said.

CBI officers expressed surprise at what they described as the Kasba police’s over-zealousness. Four to five constables waited outside Mohta’s office while the agency sleuths were inside, withdrawing from centre-stage when TV crews arrived, an eyewitness said.

A police officer in Lalbazar said the constables had been posted as a “routine” precaution against any law-and-order problem.

After questioning Mohta for about 90 minutes, the agency team contacted their bosses to complain he was not cooperating and were asked to bring him to the CBI’s Salt Lake office, where he was later arrested, sources said.

In order to pre-empt any trouble, the CBI officers used an emergency exit to take Mohta directly to the basement, where the cars were parked, and out through the back gate, a source said.

Agency sources said that according to Kundu, Mohta had been paid Rs 24 crore for the production of, and the exclusive rights to, 72-odd SVF films that were to be telecast on Rose Valley’s TV channel.