Summon sent to Bharati Ghosh, asked to appear at the earliest

Kolkata: The sleuths of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Saturday seized 20 land deeds from the Naktala residence of former Superintendent of Police of West Midnapore Bharati Ghosh.

Ghosh resigned from the state police after she was transferred to the post of Commanding Officer (CO) of the Third Battalion of the State Armed Police (SAP).

Brushing aside Ghosh's allegations that some of her family members had been locked up in a room during the raid, Nishad Parvez, DIG CID (Operations) said: "The raids were conducted following a court order and the rules for conducting raids had been strictly followed." He also stated: "All the documents that had been seized bore her signature." The raids continued till late Saturday afternoon.

The CID also conducted raids at the residences of Bimal Gharai, Subhankar Dey, Chitta Pal, Pradip Rauth, Sanjay Mahato, Debashis Dawn and Sanjib Mondol. Mondol worked as Ghosh's security. It may be mentioned that Rath, the Officer-in-Charge of Belda police station, has been taken off from active duty.

The CID officers raised the houses of the police officers situated in Naktala, Govindapur and Sonarpur. The police on Friday seized 24 kg gold, Rs 60 lakh cash and several documents related to properties.

Parvez said those four named in the FIR were first interrogated and the police got to know the names of three others whose houses were subsequently raided.

The cops seized Rs 6 lakh cash, 2 kg gold, several laptops, pen drives and hard discs from Ghosh's residence.

The police have sent a summon to Ghosh asking her to be present at Bhavani Bhawan at the earliest.

Allegations of corruption had been levelled against the police officers following a complaint of collecting gold against a scheme after demonetisation of high-value notes was announced with an assurance of a high rate of return within a few months.