Kolkata:
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has denied that her party, the Trinamool Congress, encouraged or exploited
Sudipta Sen, whose chit fund scheme collapsed in Bengal last week, leaving lakhs of small investors bereft of their savings. Ms Banerje announced a 500-crore fund today to help refund some of them.
Mr Sen was arrested two days ago and was brought to Kolkata late on Wednesday. (
Read: How Sudipta Sen was traced and arrested)
While he was on the run, he sent a letter to the CBI in which he claims he will "be committing suicide any moment."
He accuses two Trinamool MPs of pressuring him to strike deals with them. In return, he says, Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose offered to "protect" his business from the state government. "They assured me that they have very close connection the present CM of Bengal ie Mamata Banerjee," he writes.
Mr Sen also names some senior Delhi politicians and well-connected people. But NDTV does not have independent verification of his allegations and does not believe it is in the public interest to disclose these names at this stage.
In his letter bomb, Mr Sen says he bought a TV channel to counter a media campaign against him led by Kunal Ghosh. The Saradha chief says he then agreed to pay 60 lakhs a month to Pratidin, a newspaper owned by Srinjoy Bose. Over the last two years, he says, he paid Pratidin two crores.
Mr Bose told NDTV that Pratidin provided content to the Saradha chief's channel, but the deal fell through in May last year because Saradha's cheques kept bouncing. Mr Bose said he did not share this information with Ms Banerjee because involving her would have been "taking personal advantage" of his party president.
(Watch)Mr Ghosh was hired for 15 lakhs a month as the head of Saradha's media interests. He told NDTV that he resigned from Saradha earlier this month and had no information about Mr Sen's financially dysfunctional chit fund.