Kolkata top-cop Rajeev Kumar has been served a fresh notice by CBI under section 160 of the CrPC demanding that he appear before the investigative agency immediately in connection with the Saradha scam. Kumar is untraceable and five teams of the CBI are conducting searches at places across the city.
CBI launches massive manhunt in search of ex-Kolkata top cop Rajeev Kumar. Raids conducted in 5 places across Kolkata.
TIMES NOW’s Sreyashi with details. pic.twitter.com/3RFhvf9iIu
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) September 19, 2019
A top CBI officer told India Today TV, “We are conducting searches at all possible places where Rajeev Kumar can be found. We haven’t got his location yet. IPS officers mess is one such location were searches are being carried out.”
However, the CBI denied reports that the agency had conducted raids at Kumar’s house. “There are no fresh developments as far as CBI is concerned today. There were reports of CBI searching Mr. Kumar’s residence which are no true,” a senior CBI officer told The Hindu.
As per latest reports, the CBI has now filed a petition for issuing a non bailable warrant against Rajeev Kumar in Alipore court. The CBI lawyers have reportedly told the Alipore Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Subrata Mukherjee that Rajeev Kumar has not been cooperating in the probe.
Sources within the probe agency were quoted by India Today as saying, “After writing a letter to the DGP of West Bengal, we also wrote letter to the lawyer of Rajeev Kumar and asked him to direct Kumar to join the investigation. He has not appeared till today and now we have no option but to take strict measures against him.”
Kumar is currently serving as the Additional Director General of CID in West Bengal and is on leave from 9 September to 25 September.
Kumar had earlier moved the North 24-Parganas district court at Barasat seeking interim protection from arrest. But judge Mohammad Shabbar Rashidi observed that his court had no jurisdiction over the matter and therefore, he could not entertain the petition. “Since the district judge observed that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain Kumar’s petition, the IPS officer has no option but to move his case before an appropriate forum. An additional chief judicial magistrate of Alipore court can hear such a petition,” said a senior lawyer.
The CBI has now also asked the West Bengal Director General of Police (DGP) to provide the contact details of Kumar. As per reports, the West Bengal DGP, in a letter on Monday, had told CBI that its notices were sent to Kumar’s official residence and his response was awaited.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday had visited Nabanna, West Bengal secretariat, to hand over letters addressed to the DGP, chief secretary and home secretary, to know about whereabouts of Kolkata’s former top cop and the Saradha scam accused, Rajeev Kumar. But they were turned away and asked to come on a ‘working day’.
Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer, was the part of a Special Investigation Team set up by the state government to investigate the Saradha scam, before the Supreme Court handed over the case to the CBI in 2014, along with other chit fund cases. Rajeev Kumar is accused of shielding some of the accused and destroying evidence in West Bengal’s Saradha Chit Fund scam case.
