KOLKATA TOP COP QUIZZED
A CBI team began questioning Kolkata police commissioner in Shillong on Saturday in connection with a chit fund scam, but made little headway for most part of the eight-hour interrogation.
SHILLONG: A 12-member Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team began questioning Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in Shillong on Saturday in connection with a chit fund scam, but made little headway for most part of the eight-hour interrogation, people familiar with the situation said on condition of anonymity.
It was only towards the evening that Kumar, accompanied by his lawyer Bishwajit Deb, started to cooperate with the CBI, the people said.
Kumar arrived here on Friday and checked into a top heritage hotel. He was taken to the CBI office in the heart of the city on Saturday and the interview commenced at 11 am but even by late afternoon, the CBI team had gleaned very little from the police officer, the people said. His lawyer and two police officers from Kolkata who had accompanied Kumar to the Meghalaya capital, were asked to sit in a separate room.
The interrogation is likely to be shifted to a Shillong suburb on Sunday and be expedited since the date of the next hearing in the Supreme Court is February 20.
The CBI is questioning Kumar in connection with the six-yearold Saradha Group chit fund scam, in which about 1.7 million to 1.8 million depositors -- mostly poor and lower middle-class people -- lost their money. They had been lured by the promise of high returns that an army of thousands of agents in a pyramid structure sold in the market.