: Amidst reports that general secretary of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Mukul Roy is getting sidelined in the party, his son Subhranshu Roy, sought to defend him by stating that neither he nor his father have ever met or spoken to Saradha Group chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen. Mr. Roy’s comments came days after a major reshuffle in the AITC, in which leaders considered close to Mr. Roy were sidelined by party chairperson Mamata Banerjee.
Mr Sen has been behind bars for the last one and half years for failing to return the investment made by small depositors in the Ponzi scheme.
One of allegations raised by political parties in the Opposition and some of the estranged AITC leaders like Asif Khan is perhaps serious enough to implicate the general secretary of AITC.
The Opposition and Mr Khan alleged that Mr Roy had met Mr Sen before he fled the State on April 2013 after the scam came to the fore, indicating that the second-in-command of AITC had arranged for Mr Sen’s flight. Mr Sen was later arrested from Kashmir.
“Can anyone prove that Mukul Roy or Subhranshu spoke to Sudipta Sen or met him face to face,” Mr Roy who is an AITC MLA from the State’s North 24 Parganas district, said at a public gathering.
ED seizes property
The remarks are also considered to be crucial as it comes at a time when central investigating agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have stepped up the probe in the multi-crore scam.
On Monday, officials of the ED took possession of over 40 plots at Saradha Gardens, a real estate project developed by the company at Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district. Several vehicles and ambulances were also seized by ED.
According to ED officials the properties seized were worth one hundred crore rupees. While some of the seizures were made in Bengal, the rest were in other east Indian states.
Blast probe
Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the blast in south-central Bengal has not made any statements regarding developments in the Bardhaman blast case. A senior official of the NIA, however, told The Hindu , the agency is ‘putting the evidences together.’
“This is the time to analyse the documents and evidence that we have collected over the last one week. Once this processing is over we will make statements in due course,” the NIA official said.