CM relieved after Sen arrest.... Cash valley to cuffs valley Bonzi boss arrested with Debjani & aide

Sudipto Sen and Debjani Mukherjee in a seminar

TT, Calcutta, April 23: Mamata Banerjee today looked relieved as she went about her work hours after learning about Sudipto Sen’s arrest, but she did not divulge the news at a cabinet meeting as she waited for the state police’s verification.

The arrest of the Saradha Group chief and two of his associates came in a little over four days after the chief minister promised to have Sen arrested. Sen had illegally mobilised deposits through various schemes run by his company.

Sources close to Mamata said she was informed about the arrest of Sen and his accomplices — Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan — from a hotel in Kashmir’s Sonemarg around 9.30am by state director-general of police Naparajit Mukherjee.

“The police had a tip-off on Sen being tracked in Sonemarg late last night. The information was passed on to some top officials in the chief minister’s office but the CM herself got to know in the morning after confirmation came that it was indeed Sen,” said a source.

In the 40-minute cabinet meeting, held several hours later, Mamata did not divulge the information, though the identity of the three had already been ascertained.

“She looked very relaxed. Though she spoke at length on the measures that the government was taking against such fund mobilising companies, she did not utter a single word on Sen’s arrest,” said a senior minister.

Mamata had announced a manhunt for Sen on Thursday evening, before leaving Writers’ Buildings. As protests mounted against the government for not reigning in the sham companies — agents and depositors had rushed to Mamata’s residence and the Trinamul headquarters — the chief minister was under pressure to get Sen arrested.

Sources said Mamata kept the information to herself and did not confide in any other minister or Trinamul leader.

“Only a handful of police officers and officials were kept informed about the development in Sonemarg. The CM gave the go-ahead to make the information public only after a police team reached Sonemarg and verified the arrests,” a senior official said.

Bidhannagar commissioner of police Rajeev Kumar came to Writers’ Buildings around 4pm.

The announcement was made by him, in the presence of home secretary Basudeb Banerjee and state police chief Mukherjee.

The chief minister had announced a commission and a special investigation team to probe the funds scam involving Saradha and plans to promulgate an ordinance to curb the menace.

Sources said the chief minister was under immense pressure as she was aware that the government had to be seen as taking action.

There have been reports of people vandalising offices of the Saradha Group and those of other alleged fraud fund companies.

Some depositors also tried to end their lives. A domestic help who had invested her life’s savings in a scheme run by the Saradha Group committed suicide in Baruipur on Sunday and there were reports of suicide attempts from other parts of the state.

The Opposition, the CPM and the Congress, had pointed fingers at the Trinamul government for the delay in arresting Sen, on the run since April 10.

Agents and depositors repeatedly said they invested in the company because of the group’s perceived proximity with the ruling Trinamul, a point Opposition parties have seized on to target Trinamul.

“The arrest has come at the right time. The pressure was mounting…. This would help convince the general public that the government is serious about tackling such operators,” said a minister.

MUZAFFAR RAINA. TT,Srinagar, April 23: Saradha Group’s Sudipto Sen was arrested today in a picturesque valley in Kashmir — the choice of hideout matching the dream he sold to countless depositors but belying the crisis he has detonated on the Mamata Banerjee government.

Along with him was Debjani Mukherjee, who was groomed in an airhostess training institute and became the closest associate of Sudipto as well as a director of a Saradha Group company.

Arvind Singh Chauhan, the other person arrested with the duo, had also pulled off a dizzying career leap — from Sudipto’s personal driver to the chief of Saradha’s operations in Jharkhand.

The trio were tracked down to Sonamarg, the Kashmir Valley’s premier tourist destination on the Kargil road and 85km from Srinagar.

Jammu and Kashmir police zeroed in on Hotel Snowland, whose lawns face the enchanting Thajwas glacier and the rear overlooks the famed Sindh river, soon after midnight after an alert from Bidhannagar police in Salt Lake where the Saradha headquarters is located.

As a woman cannot be held after sundown, they were detained around 8.30 this morning and the arrests executed in the evening after a police team from Bengal reached the spot and took them into custody.

“I got a call at 12 last night from (Bidhannagar) police commissioner Rajeev Kumar. I was told that three persons wanted by them might be in Sonamarg. They gave us their description and asked us to find out if that matches with any people there,” Kashmir inspector-general of police Abdul Gani Mir told The Telegraph.

“We were immediately on the job and found that two men and a lady were staying in a particular hotel. They were not disturbed during the night but in the morning we detained them. The description given by the police matched. Later, they too said that they were the three persons we were looking for,” Mir added.

The three have been brought to Ganderbal, the district headquarters 20km from Srinagar, and are expected to be produced before a magistrate tomorrow for a transit remand for their travel to Calcutta.

Speculation was rife in Bengal that a cache of cash has been seized from them but Kashmir police sources said they were not aware of more than Rs 20,000 and some jewellery.

Ganderbal SP Shahid Mehraj said he was called by his boss Mir well past midnight and told to get cracking. By then, Kashmir police sources said, Bidhannagar investigators had mailed them pictures of Sudipto, accused of running Bengal’s version of a Ponzi scheme.

Shahid called the station house officer of Sonamarg, Afaq Ahmad, who scoured the entry details of hotels and guesthouses at the tourist resort.

At one of the hotels, rooms were booked in the name of Arvind, a name that matched the list provided from Bengal. The hotel employees informed the police that two men and a lady made up the group.

“That made us suspicious. We kept guard around the hotel for the night. We knocked on their door in the morning in the presence of the local sarpanch and two witnesses. We found that it was the group we were looking for,” Shahid said.

“A member of Bengal police later identified them. A larger team will come tomorrow to acquire the transit remand,” Shahid said.

Rasikh Ahmad, the deputy superintendent of police in Ganderbal, identified the hotel as Snowland.

A hotel employee said the group had checked in yesterday. “I can only tell you that three people were picked up by the police and they were travelling in a car which had a West Bengal number plate,” he said.

The police sources said Sudipto and his associates might have chosen Sonamarg in the hope of losing themselves among the milling tourists from across the country, including Bengal. Sonamarg is equally famous with Amarnath pilgrims who use Baltal, a part of the resort, as the base camp for the pilgrimage.

But the choice also carried risks as the area is closely monitored by security agencies that are used to responding to emergency situations and verifying the antecedents of hotel guests at a short notice.

The police said they searched various offices and properties owned by Sudipto and seized at least 148 documents, including deeds of properties held by him. 
“We have also interrogated one Hemanta Pradhan, one of the personal cooks of Sen, who was a director at Saradha Tours and Travels. He has told us he was not even aware that Sen had made him a director,” said Ghosh.