Kolkata Police chief grilled by CBI for eight hours, Trinamool ex-MP summoned

Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar was on Saturday questioned for eight hours by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here in the chit fund scam, and has been asked to appear again on Sunday for further examination.

Former Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh, who was arrested in November 2013 in connection with Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams and granted interim bail by Calcutta High Court in 2016, has also arrived in Shillong after the CBI summoned him.

"He (Kumar) was questioned for almost eight hours since 10.45 a.m. He has been asked to appear again tomorrow (Sunday) for further questioning into the matter," a CBI official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told IANS.

"We cannot say if Ghosh will be asked to appear before the team tomorrow (Sunday)," the official said.

Kumar 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 with three other senior state police officers - Additional Police Commissioner Javed Shamim, STF chief Murulidhar Sharma and CID chief Praveen Kumar Tripathi.

"There is no question of not cooperating. He has cooperated before and is doing now too. We are here because of the Supreme Court order," Kumar's legal counsel, Biswajit Deb told journalists after emerging out of the CBI office.

Meghalaya Police is providing adequate security cover to Kumar while the CBI office at Oakland has turned into a fortress with the Meghalaya Police Special Force (SF) 10 guarding it.

Meghalaya Police chief R Chandranathan walked by the CBI office with his bodyguard while his Kolkata counterpart was being grilled by the interrogators but refused to speak to some journalists there.

"The DGP came to see the security arrangement but he did not speak to anyone," a Meghalaya Police official said.

A CBI team was allegedly roughed up and detained for a few hours when it went to question Kumar at his residence in Kolkata last Sunday in connection with its probe into the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund cases.

Following the face-off between the CBI and Kolkata Police, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staged a sit-in protest for over 45 hours.

The matter went before the Supreme Court which asked Kumar to appear before the agency in a neutral place but restrained it from arresting him.

Meanwhile, Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy, in a tweet, welcomed both the Kolkata Police Commissioner and the CBI team to Shillong.

"Pity I'm out of town! Welcome to Meghalaya,the abode of the clouds. Happy questioning,happy answering," Roy tweeted.

--IANS

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