Two senior cops arrested, Bharati under scanner

Kolkata: In a major development, Circle Inspector (CI) and Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Ghatal police station were arrested in connection with the Daspur case, in which allegations of cheating after taking gold from local businessmen had cropped up.

The two senior police officers were arrested on Friday in this connection, in which the allegations of involvement of the former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh has also cropped up. They will be produced before the court on Saturday.

It may be mentioned that houses of the CI Subhankar De and OC Chitta Pal were searched in this connection. The investigating officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had seized around Rs 40 lakh in cash, which was considered to be "unaccounted wealth" from the residence of De and around Rs 16 lakh in cash from the residence of Pal.

According to a senior officer of the CID, they will be interrogated to get more information in this connection. This comes at the time when the residences of Ghosh and her close ones have also been searched.

The investigating officers had seized a large number of Arms Licence applications, many verification rolls of different candidates applying for employment and 57 sealed bottles containing thirty nine litres of alcohol, from the house of Ghosh during the raids.

The search operation will, however, continue and teams comprising CID officers have already spread out even outside the state to take necessary legal action against other suspected persons who are involved in the incident.

Meanwhile, further notice under section 41A has been served to MAV Raju, Ghosh's husband, summoning him to appear before the investigators of the case on Saturday. It may be recalled that he didn't turn up at the CID headquarters on February 7 for health issues, as he was summoned for questioning in this connection.