CBI grills Kolkata top cop, Kunal Ghosh over scams

Shillong: The CBI has been questioning Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar and former TMC MP Kunal Ghosh by making them sit face to face at the probe agency’s office here in connection with the Saradha chit fund and Rose Valley scams, officials said on Sunday.

The marathon questioning of Mr Kumar, that began at 10.30 am, was still on at 9.30 pm when this report was filed.

The questioning by the CBI, being done as per the directions of the Supreme Court, continued for the second day on Sunday.

A two-member CBI team, who are the investigating officers in the Saradha and Rose Valley scams, arrived here in the afternoon. Mr Kumar and Mr Ghosh were grilled in the initial period by a 10-member team of the CBI, the officials said.

The Kolkata police chief was quizzed for nearly nine hours on Saturday by three senior CBI officers about his alleged role in tampering of crucial evidence in the case, they said.

Mr Kumar had led the special investigation team (SIT) formed by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to probe the Saradha scam before the case was handed over to the CBI by the apex court.

Officials in Delhi said the CBI has not acceded to the demand of Mr Kumar to have his questioning session videographed. It is done in cases of custodial interrogations, they said.

There were reports quoting lawyer of Mr Kumar that his questioning sessions are being video recorded by the CBI on his request.

Mr Ghosh, who arrived here shortly after 10 am, sought blessings of goddess Saraswati at a pandal before entering the highly secured office of the inv-estigating agency.