Daspur fraud case: CID arrests closed SI Pradip Rath

Kolkata: Closed sub-inspector Pradip Rath has been arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Monday evening, in connection with the Daspur fraud case. Rath is the fifth police officer to get arrested in two separate cases, in which the name of former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh is involved.

Rath was the officer-in-charge (OC) of Daspur police station, when the traders were cheated. He was transferred to Belda police station as OC, soon after Ghosh was transferred to the post of CO of the Third Battalion of SAP.

He was one of the four police officers whose names had cropped in this connection and he was picked up from his residential quarter on February 2 for interrogation. Search operations were also conducted in his house, following a court order. He was subsequently taken off active duty.

The investigating officers continued with the probe and arrested Rath on Monday evening. A senior officer of CID said that he will be produced before Ghatal Court on Tuesday.

Earlier, circle inspector (CI) Subhankar De and officer-in-charge (OC) of Ghatal police station Chitta Pal were arrested in this connection. Their houses were also searched and CID officers had seized around Rs 40 lakh cash from the residence of De and around Rs 16 lakh cash from the residence of Pal. The investigating officers consider the recovered amount to be "unaccounted wealth".

On February 13, SI Rajsekhar Pain, who was also known to be close to Bharati Ghosh, was arrested in connection with the misappropriation of Rs 45 lakh of businessman Eunus Ali. He was the then OC of Kharagpur local police station.

During investigation, police had conducted a raid in the house of Pain and found a hidden tunnel behind his house, leading to a vault. The investigating officers came to know that the vault was removed from the place in a car, the day before CID officers conducted the raid. CID officers are in search of the vault.