MY KOLKATA EDUGRAPH
ADVERTISEMENT
Regular-article-logo Monday, 23 December 2024

Rajeev Kumar quizzed in city he once policed

Kumar goes to the CBI office in Calcutta for the first time in Saradha case probe

Our Special Correspondent Salt Lake Published 08.06.19, 01:18 AM
Rajeev Kumar on Friday.

Rajeev Kumar on Friday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Former Calcutta police commissioner Rajeev Kumar responded to a CBI summons and turned up at the agency’s office in Salt Lake on Friday morning to answer questions related to the Saradha scam probe.

Kumar was questioned for four hours in connection with the default scam, which was first reported to the Bidhannagar commissionerate when he was the commissioner.

ADVERTISEMENT

This was the first time Kumar went to the CBI office in the city to be examined in connection with the Saradha probe. He was earlier questioned in Shillong.

Kumar, against whom the CBI had moved the Supreme Court seeking custodial interrogation, had moved Calcutta High Court in the last week of May seeking quashing of the CBI notice to him over alleged suppression of facts in the Saradha default case.

A vacation bench of the high court had on May 30 granted him a month’s protection from June 10, when the court will reopen after summer break, and directed him to hand over his passport to the CBI within 24 hours.

The officer, now additional director-general in charge of the CID, has to be present at his Park Street residence every day at 4pm to get his attendance recorded by a CBI officer.

Kumar entered the CBI office around 11am and stepped out after three hours.

He did not respond to queries from reporters waiting outside the office in the CGO complex.

Sources in the CBI said Kumar was asked about his role as a senior member of the special investigation team the Bengal government had set up to investigate all deposit default cases. “He was asked about the items seized from Saradha directors Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee when they were arrested in Kashmir,” an officer said.

Sen, who was owner and chairman of the Saradha group of industries, and Mukherjee were arrested at a hotel in Kashmir in April 2013.

CBI officers said Kumar was asked about the items that were seized but later handed back to the accused.

An officer said Kumar’s statements had been videographed and would be compared with those of IPS officer Arnab Ghosh.

Ghosh, who was Kumar’s deputy in the Bidhannagar commissionerate, was questioned at the CBI office twice recently.

Follow us on:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT