Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at 10 locations in the city on Thursday in connection with the multi-crore Saradha scam that left lakhs of investors duped of their savings.
The CBI has given the deadline of July 31 (Thursday) to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of West Bengal police to hand over the documents related to the Sardha group scam. The SIT was looking after the investigation before the Supreme Court in May directed the CBI to investigate the scam.
“The CBI on Thursday conducted searches at 10 locations in West Bengal and 20 in Odisha. The searches were conducted at different offices and residential premises belonging to various accused and suspect persons and the companies against whom the CBI has registered cases,” a senior CBI officer said. In the city, the CBI formed at least 12 teams that conducted thorough searches at two residential premises of Saradha Group chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen in the Salt Lake area. Residence of arrested Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh along with residence of arrested executive director of Saradha Group Debjani Mukherjee was also searched.
The search continued till late in the evening. Besides, several offices of Saradha Reality and Saradha Tours and Travels along with the group head office at Midland Park were searched. The keys of these houses and officers were made available by the West Bengal police and it was reported that in some cases there was a delay in making the keys available to officials of the Central investigation agency.
Earlier, the CBI has registered 47 FIRs in the Sradha scam of which three were registered in the State and 44 in Odisha
