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Regular-article-logo Wednesday, 24 April 2024

Summons to Rajeev Kumar after CBI does rounds

The poll panel had instructed Kumar to report to the home ministry on May 16

TT Bureau Calcutta Published 26.05.19, 10:16 PM
CBI officers leave Rajeev Kumar’s quarters on Park Street on Sunday evening.

CBI officers leave Rajeev Kumar’s quarters on Park Street on Sunday evening. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

A CBI team visited three premises on Sunday evening in search of former police commissioner Rajeev Kumar and, unable to find him, served notices in at least two of the addresses asking him to present himself before the central agency on Monday.

CBI sources said the notices asked Kumar to appear at the agency’s unit at the Central Government Offices (CGO) complex in Salt Lake by Monday morning in connection with a Saradha case.

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The action, devoid of the confrontation that marked a CBI visit to Kumar’s then Loudon Street home in February and brought chief minister Mamata Banerjee to the streets, came after the central agency issued a lookout notice against the officer for a year, which means he cannot leave the country.

On Friday, Kumar was unable to secure anticipatory bail from a Barasat court after a window of protection from arrest, granted by the Supreme Court, closed.

On Sunday, while the CBI team was headed to the first address, the model code of conduct ceased to exist. Within an hour, the state government had reinstated Kumar as state CID chief. Calcutta police commissioner Anuj Sharma and Biddhannagar police commissioner Gyanwant Singh are among the other officers reinstated.

A four-member team of CBI officers, led by Manish Upadhaya, deputy superintendent of police, economic offence wing, went to the Loudon Street home meant for Calcutta police chiefs, probably because it still sports Kumar’s nameplate.

Told Kumar no longer lived there, the CBI officers moved to the nearby officers’ quarters on Park Street. “One of the family members present at the residence refused to receive the notice. So the officers pasted it on the main door,” said a CBI source.

The CBI team then went to Bhavani Bhavan, where Kumar’s new office is housed, and served another notice.

Kumar, who is from Uttar Pradesh, is believed to have taken a flight from Calcutta to Varanasi on Sunday, CBI sources said. They said a CBI team had already reached Varanasi on Saturday evening.

The sources said CBI officers had been trying to get in touch with Kumar over the phone since Sunday afternoon after word emerged that he was back in Calcutta from Delhi.

The poll panel had instructed Kumar to report to the home ministry on May 16.

“As Kumar could not be contacted on his phone, the investigating officer informed his seniors who in turn reported it to Delhi,” said an officer.

“We are going to all this trouble visiting so many places and trying to formally hand over the notice… we expect Kumar to cooperate with us.”

The officer said that during Kumar’s five-day interrogation in Shillong in February, CBI officers had not been satisfied with his replies.

Kumar, who led a special investigating team set up by the Mamata government to probe the Saradha scam, faces allegations of “tampering with evidence and non-cooperation” with the CBI.

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