I was used, blackmailed by TMC MPs: Sen to CBI

Madhuparna Das, IE, Kolkata, Apr 24 2013: Saradha Group CMD Sudipta Sen has sent an 18-page letter to the CBI containing names of several key politicians, officials and legal experts who allegedly milked the company for money.

The letter, which reached the CBI in Delhi as Sen remained at large, was forwarded by the agency to its office in Kolkata, and it was subsequently referred to the Bidhannagar police commissionerate.

Bidhannagar police commissioner Rajeev Kumar received Sen's letter on April 19, top sources said. The letter could potentially blow the lid off the nexus between politicians and Bengal's chit fund industry, which has allowed lakhs of investors in villages and small towns to be duped of their savings.

Arnab Ghosh, DC, DD, Bidhannagar police commissionerate, confirmed having received the letter from CBI. "It is a letter from an accused who is on the run," Ghosh said.

The letter, which has reportedly been attested by Sen on each of its 18 pages, is believed to have described his close links with at least two Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha members and a minister of the Assam government.

The letter allegedly describes how Sen was "blackmailed" by these MPs and the minister for money. Sen's chit fund business was well entrenched in Assam, and his media company had a daily newspaper, Seven Sisters' Post, in Guwahati.

The paper has shut down, along with all the publications that he had opened or taken over in Bengal.

Attached to the letter is a list of 22 names of people who allegedly "used" Sen to make money. At least five senior political leaders are learnt to be among them, besides a dozen businessmen who ran their own chit fund businesses in the state.

The letter allegedly describes how Sen had been "forced" to take over an ailing and loss-making motorbike manufacturing unit in Polba near Singur by a business lobby close to the Trinamool Congress government. It alleges that the TMC MPs promised Sen a free run in his businesses, without any government "interruption and intervention".

Top CBI sources said the letter narrates the story of the origin and growth of Sen's chit fund business. It allegedly names a senior functionary of a Kolkata football club who promised to "manage" things for him by using a "special connection" he had with an influential central government minister. This football official allegedly took a huge fee to set up Sen's line with the minister.

The sources said the letter also mentions the wife of a top UPA government minister, who is a legal expert. Sen allegedly paid around Rs 1 crore to this woman advocate to draft the legal papers for his takeover of a local news channel.

The letter is also believed to mention how Sen's own employees cheated him, leaking "confidential datas" of the company to rival firms.

It is learnt that the letter also mentions a number of projects in which the Saradha Group spent a lot of money, only to be in the "good books" of the government. It mentions donations of ambulances, motorbikes and bicycles, which the state government allegedly distributed in Naxal-hit Junglemahal.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has denied knowledge of the scam, or of the now three-year-old SEBI probe against Sen. The rash of companies that operated under the Saradha Group umbrella were never registered with the government for collecting deposits from the public. But Sen continued to evade action for at least seven years during which his companies raised crores of rupees from depositors in various schemes.