Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) yesterday arrested Kolkata businessman Sandhir Agarwal in connection with the multi-crore rupee Saradha scam, an official said.
“Following interrogation, Sandhir Agarwal has been arrested. He will be presented before a court today,” a CBI spokesperson said.
This is the second arrest made by the CBI in a week after it took over the investigation of the scam in West Bengal following a Supreme Court order in May.
The agency had on Wednesday arrested East Bengal Football Club official Debabrata Sarkar.
Scam kingpin Sudipta Sen in his April 2013 letter to the CBI had alleged Sarkar and his accomplices including Agarwal, of extorting over Rs40 crore from him, to cover up a probe then being conducted by market regulator SEBI.
Earlier yesterday, the agency grilled retired IPS officer Rajat Majumdar for nearly seven hours.
Besides Majumdar, who had served as director general of the state armed police and after retirement, as security advisor for the tainted company, CBI sleuths, during the day, also interrogated scam kingpin Sudipta Sen and Amrin Ara — a former accountant of the company.
Majumdar’s name cropped up after suspended Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh, now behind bars, accused the former Indian Police Service officer of swindling crores of rupees in organising a cultural programme in Las Vegas in 2012.
Majumdar, who had served as a poll observer for the Trinamool in Birbhum for the panchayat election in 2013, rubbished the allegations. “All the allegations are false,” Majumdar said in the morning while entering the CBI office here.
On August 14, CBI sleuths had raided Majumdar’s residence and seized several documents. The CBI on Thursday secured the custody of Sen, the Saradha promoter and East Bengal Football Club official Debabrata Sarkar, for questioning.
IANS
