Another aspect of modus operandi of Kolkata-based tainted Saradha Group which is accused of duping over Rs 100 crore from the investors here has come to light.
The company had kept several former police officers on its payroll to win the confidence of investors. One of them was a former vigilance SP of the State.
According to the documents in possession of ‘The Express’, not only the retired SP, many retired police officers including a former IIC of a Balasore police station was the company’s administrative officer (AO).
Though the Crime Branch (CB) has arrested Saradha’s Liaison officer Bichitrananda Das and branch manager Basudev Samal, the retired government officers who cooperated with the company authorities to dupe investors are moving scot-free.
The sources said Ujjal Kumar Brahma, who was SP (vigilance) in Bhubaneswar division for nearly 14 months till he retired in February 2010, had joined Saradha Realty India Limited, a sister company of Saradha Group in mid-2010 as its CEO and was overseeing its branch operations in the State.
Similarly, retired IIC Pitabas Nayak was working as the AO for the last three years till a case was registered against him in September last year by the then manager of the company’s Balasore branch Mithun Samanta.
Though the case was registered by Sahadevkhunta police against Nayak along with Saradha CMD Sudipta Sen and development officer Nayan Pathi on the direction of SDJM court here, police did not arrest Nayak, Sen and Pathi. Later, police also deleted their names from the chargesheet submitted in the court in December last year.
Contacted, though Brahma claimed that he was not into financial matters. “I was CEO for a short period and later the company made me its legal advisor,” he said over phone.
The sources said the money collected from the investors in Odisha was taken to the company’s Kolkata office in a vehicle at least twice in a week while the company was paying in cheques for operational expenses of the branches.
This indicates that the company was avoiding banking transaction only not to keep in record about the collection of deposits.
