No evidence to probe CPM members named by Madan Mitra : CBI

NEW DELHI: Arrested Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal minister MadanMitra may have named three CPM leaders for alleged involvement in the Saradha scam, but CBI is yet to find any evidence against them. And the agency is in no mood to proceeds without sufficient evidence against any one.
Mitra had told the SIT probing Saradha scam that Mohammad Salim (MP), former MP Sujan Chakraborty and Rabin Deb – all from CPM — were also involved.
CBI sources said they have already examined Rabin Deb once but nothing concrete came up against him or the others named by Mitra. “If we come across any evidence in future which links them to Saradha scam, we will question them,” an officer said.
Interestingly, West Bengal police, which probed the Saradha scam before May this year, never questioned the CPM leaders named by Mitra despite TMC being in the power in the state.
The officer said, “A lot of people have named several others during our interrogation, something which Madan Mitra also did. But, we have to have some evidence against the person to be able to interrogate him or arrest him/her.”
During Mitra’s questioning last week, the SIT confronted him with several documents and statements of Sudipta Sen, Kunal Ghosh and several others, but he reportedly did not cooperate with the agency. “He has been making several claims or accusing CBI of unconstitutionally arresting him, basically to divert from the issue. We have strong evidence which proves that he openly, even as MLA in the state, propagated the Saradha schemes which lured investors to put their hard earned money,” said the officer.
On TMC’s allegations that Madan Mitra was arrested unconstitutionally without intimating anyone, sources said CBI is not supposed to inform anyone except the assembly Speaker. “We even informed the CM’s office, chief secretary of West Bengal and Raj Bhawan through fax, letter and email on the day Mitra was arrested,” said the officer.
Mitra was arrested on December 12 after a brief interrogation, which he had been avoiding in the past. CBI has alleged that he took favours from Saradha group.