One of the circled dramatis personae reads: Nalini Chidambaram. In over one and a half years, she took Rs. 1 crore. Her hotel and travel bills during Kolkata visits were reportedly paid by Sudipta.Chit fund scam: Saradha chief Sudipta Sen gives his interrogators a tough time, says he was helping the poor
SOUDHRITI BHABANI | Kolkata, April 27, 2013 | 08:55
Debjani Mukherjee was an all-time companion of the Saradha Group CMD Sudipto Sen.Soudhriti Bhabani | MAIL TODAY | Kolkata, April 27, 2013 | UPDATED 11:10 IST
Police detectives had a tough time interrogating Saradha Group chairman Sudipta Sen, who proved to be a hard nut to crack. In the face of sustained grilling, the scamster kept spouting his ideologies throughout on Friday.
Sen was interrogated by a number of detectives of Bidhannagar police led by deputy commissioner Arnab Ghosh. The grilling started at 10.30 am on Friday and continued till late at night in separate sessions.
Sen and his associates Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan, who were arrested along with him in Jammu and Kashmir, were quizzed by several police officers separately in three different rooms of the New Town police station.
Police sources said Sen reportedly told the investigators that he considered himself as the only son of holy mother Sarada Devi, wife of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and claimed to be inspired by her ideals.
In order to mislead the investigation, Sen said he started his company to help the poor and never wanted to cheat them, police sources said. But gradually under sustained interrogation, Saradha chief Sudipta Sen revealed that his company used to give hefty bribes to senior police officers, income tax and SEBI officials every month to avoid tax related implications.
Sources said the Saradha Group used to give Rs 70 lakh to SEBI and Rs 40 lakh to Assam Police every month. Many retired IPS officers were also in the company's pay rolls. The sources said the total amount paid as bribe every month ran into more than a crore.
The trio was quizzed on cases related to economic offences, the involvement of high-profile politician, realty fraud and money market controversies among others.
Sen was arrested on Tuesday from Sonmarg in J&K along with his associates in connection with the chit fund scam that left lakhs of depositors staring at the prospect of losing their hard-earned money.
On Monday Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced the setting up of a high-level inquiry commission and a Special Investigation Team to probe into the collapse of the Saradha Group. She on Friday said Rs 500 crore would be demanded from the Centre to pay back defrauded investors of Saradha Group as SEBI and RBI failed in their duty to check such companies.
The trio was brought back to Kolkata on a four-day transit remand on Wednesday night and produced in Bidhannagar court on Thursday. They were remanded in 14-day police custody. Debjani's younger sister Arpita was also called to the New Town police station for interrogation by the Bidhannagar police commissionerate in connection with the case.
Protest
Meanwhile, employees of the Saradha Group owned 24-hour TV news channel, Channel 10, filed a complaint against Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP and Saradha Group media cell chief executive officer (CEO) Kunal Ghosh and chairman Sudipta for not paying salaries and deposit contributions to the provident fund. The complaint was filed with the the Park Street police station late on Thursday.
Ghosh told a TV channel that all the charges against him were "baseless" and a "deep-rooted conspiracy" had been hatched against him as he was never responsible for disbursing the salary.
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