Siliguri editor files FIR

AVIJIT SINHA, Siliguri, May 3: The resident editor of Siliguri-based Prabhat Varta, a Hindi daily published by the Saradha Group, has filed an FIR against Sudipta Sen and Kunal Ghosh, saying payment of at least a month’s salary was due to all the employees.

“There are over 20 employees in the company’s payroll, including me, while another 30 people used to work as retainers on a contractual basis in north Bengal districts. All of us are yet to get salaries of at least one month or more as the newspaper has stopped publishing from the end of March this year,” said Ravi Shankar Singh, the resident editor.

“The company has also not deposited a sum of Rs 3 lakh for the provident fund though the amount was deducted from our salaries,” he said.

Singh has also mentioned in his complaint that the company had not paid Rs 15 lakh for newsprint and printing costs. He said: “I had acted as per instructions from Calcutta and taken up the task of getting the newsprint and the printing done on credit. When I tried to contact the officials in Calcutta, they asked me to keep mum and threatened me with dire consequences.”

Sen was the owner of the group, Ghosh was the CEO of the media wing of Saradha and Tarun Roy, the third person Singh has named in the FIR, was the senior vice-president of the Saradha Printing and Publication Pvt Ltd.

A journalist (who did not want to be named) _who was associated with The Bengal Post in Siliguri has filed a complaint, mentioning that his salary for two months was due. “I have also said about the deductions made for PF and income tax, which, we learnt later, were not deposited with the concerned authorities,” he said, buying anonymity.

“We have received both the complaints and have started an investigation,” said O.G. Pal, the deputy commissioner of Siliguri Metropolitan Police.