NEW DELHI: On a day the CBI issued a lookout notice against former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in connection with the Saradha scam, an agency team also went to his Kolkata residence asking him to come to its office there on Monday for questioning.
The agency is set to interrogate Kumar after taking him into custody as the apex court’s seven-day protection ended on Friday, CBI sources said.
“No court has given anticipatory bail to him yet and the CBI is now free to proceed for custodial interrogation,” they added.
The CBI said that Kumar—whom West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee earlier this year called “the best in the world”—should not be allowed to leave India, as he has been accused of destroying evidence while heading the team probing the Saradha chit fund scam in which many Trinamool leaders allegedly had a role.
In February, a CBI team that went to Kolkata to question him was detained by Bengal police, after which Mamata launched a two-day dharna in the Bengal capital accusing the BJP of vendetta.
The Supreme Court on Thursday had refused to hear Kumar’s petition seeking an extension of protection from arrest. The CBI told the court it wanted custodial interrogation of Kumar as there was preliminary evidence that he tried to tamper with evidence to shield some top people.
Didi puts him back in old role
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday night reinstated Kumar to his old post of Additional Director General of West Bengal CID, from which he had been removed earlier by the EC.