Kolkata:
Sudipta Sen, the millionaire whose Saradha group collapsed last month, is divulging minute details about how he allegedly bribed politicians and officials across several states to ensure he could continue with the dodgy dealings that made him rich, top police sources interrogating him in Kolkata have said.
In police custody, he has reportedly alleged that apart from West Bengal, he had paid bribes to politicians and officials in Odisha, Assam and Mumbai too. The police have started investigating those allegations, including details that Mr Sen has reportedly furnished of couriers or people through whom he says he arranged those alleged pay-offs to ensure he remained protected.
Mr Sen was arrested, along with two colleagues, from Jammu and Kashmir last week, days after he went missing as cheques from the chit fund that he ran began to bounce. The collapse of his business empire has left lakhs of small investors bereft of their savings.
While he was underground, Mr Sen wrote an 18-page letter to the CBI naming 22 people, including top politicians, who he accused of using him to make money. Among them he named two MPs of the Trinamool Congress that rules West Bengal and accused them of blackmailing him. He said in his letter that he was on the verge of suicide.
To the police, however, Mr Sen has allegedly detailed how he planned, after his escape from West Bengal and cross-country drive to J&K, to lie low in that state for some time, before setting up an operation similar to the one he ran in West Bengal, there and in the neigbhouring Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh.
The police will hire private consultants to value Mr Sen's properties. He had reportedly invested in 142 properties mainly in Bengal and Orissa, valued at only 33 crores. Though, the sources said, Mr Sen claims they are worth Rs 400 crore.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her MPs have vehemently denied any association with the chit fund that the Saradha group ran. But the opposition in Bengal has demanded that the investigation be handed over to the CBI.