The recent chain of events in Bengal involving the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, the Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, the CBI, the Central Government and the Opposition shows the malaise that exists in the name of “Saving the Constitution” & “Saving the Country”, today. A ponzi scam and a petition which existed before the formation of the current BJP Government at the Centre are at the crux of the problem today. But the BJP government and the CBI are being blamed by those shielding the accused. Let us see what actually happened:
In 2006, Sudipto Sen started a group called the Saradha Group. He built a web of companies, a consortium of 200 private companies to run a collective investment scheme, collected about Rs. 200 – 300 billion (US 4 – 6 billion dollars) and then through various money laundering processes, sent the monies abroad, reportedly to Dubai, South Africa and Singapore and then collapsed his firm in 2013. People of the States of West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Tripura and Jharkhand were affected by this ponzi scheme. Interestingly, reportedly, many TMC leaders were the beneficiaries of this scheme – MP Kunal Ghosh, MP Srinjoy Bose, Transport Minister Madan Mitra, Textile Minister Shyamapada Mukherjee, Manoranjana Sinh (wife of former Congress MP from Assam Matang Sinh), to name a few of them. Sudipto Sen, the group’s chairman and managing director, reportedly spent ₹18.6 million (US$260,000) to buy paintings by Mamata Banerjee, the CM of West Bengal. Some of the other TMC MPs who were involved as brand ambassadors were actors Satabdi Roy and Mithun Chakraborty. Interestingly, the group acquired and established local television channels and newspapers and employed over 1,500 journalists and owned eight newspapers printed in five languages – Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Assamese and Punjabi. Interestingly, Anandabazar Patrika, a Bengali newspaper, citing several domestic and foreign intelligence reports, published a series of articles reporting that Saradha Group through Ahmed Hassan Imran, a TMC MP and founder member of Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), engaged Jamaat-e-Islami, a Bangladeshi extremist organisation, to move money out of India.
Finally in 2013 Sudipto Sen was arrested with some other colleagues. As reported by The Telegraph, West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was reported to have said, “ja gechhey ta gechhey” (whatever has gone has gone). She announced a Rs.500-crore relief fund for the very small investors who were hit by this scam. The West Bengal government also set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under section 36 of the CrPC, with officers drawn from the state’s CID and Kolkata Police, to investigate the Saradha Group and current Kolkata Police Chief Rajeev Kumar headed this SIT. Mamata Banerjee led state government staunchly opposed all investigations by federal investigative agencies CBI, ED and SFIO. Finally, in April 2014, the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to investigate the Saradha group ‘chit fund’ scam. Recently, following the steps of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee decided to withdraw the general consent given to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). She claimed, “times have changed because instructions are being sent to CBI from the BJP’s party office.” She also claimed, “Country is in Danger”.
The CBI, while performing its duty, kept following up with Rajeev Kumar for submission of all evidences and documents gathered during his role as the SIT Chief. But the Police Chief had been “missing” and had ignored several summons, indicating his non-cooperation. Finally CBI officers landed up in Kolkata to investigate the missing documents. Mamata Banerjee, fresh from the defiance of UP CM Yogi Adityanath in addressing people in WB, and the mammoth rallies and public speeches of Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi, decided to take this opportunity to show that she’s the boss in West Bengal. The CBI officers were blocked from entering the residence of Rajeev Kumar and were detained at a police station for a few hours, till the Union Minister for Home Affairs threatened the use of CRPF to rescue the officers. This was enough for Mamata Banerjee to stage a dharna at Kolkata with the ‘missing’ police chief by her side.
Immediately the entire Opposition rallied behind Mamata Banerjee to support her protest against the BJP government. This included the Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who was immediately advised by his local unit chief that the ground realities were different from the Optics. Because of this, reportedly Rahul Gandhi will not be attending the Dharna. At one time Congress kept criticizing the Mamata Government for not doing enough to put the culprits behind bars. Not just that, some Congress politicians are also accused in the case. Almost all those who are supporting Mamata Banerjee today have been investigated at some time or the other for frauds, cheating the public or scamming the Nation of funds. This includes the DMK, Tejaswi Yadav of RJD, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav of SP, AP CM Chandrababu Naidu (who also objects to CBI in his State), BSP to name a few. All of them are worried about the “Misuse of the Constitution” and are out to “Save the Nation”.
Where were these people when RVS Mani, who was under secretary in the Chidambaram-led Home Ministry, was tortured by CBI officer Satish Verma, in an attempt to implicate IB Chiefs in the Ishrat Jehan case? (Note: Readers will remember that Chidambaram (then Home Minister) is accused of following his Congress party’s instructions to project that Ishrat Jehan was an innocent student killed in cold blood with the blessings of the then Gujarat government.) Now that the BJP government is actually trying to clean up the system and round up the accused, the BJP and the CBI are being targeted by the entire Opposition. “Birds of a feather, flock together”!
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