Saradha chairman Sudipta Sen, presently behind bars in connection with the chit fund scam in West Bengal, never wanted to venture into the media industry and claimed that the suspended Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh, who was also arrested in the similar charges, ‘blackmailed’ him to invest money for his personal interest.
The startling revelation came during Sudipta’s interrogation during the course of investigation by the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate.
‘He showed me a world of power and said if I want to run my business safely then he has to invest in media to get close to the bureaucracy. He also blackmailed me over several issues and I was forced to follow his decision,’ Sudipta told cops.
Kunal, often used to say, ‘people who can’t compete and try to attack me below the belt out of jealousy, I take them as my inspiration to life’. But, his competitiveness landed him behind bars after the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate found documents substantiating his role in Sudipta’s misdeed.
What came as a surprise before the cops that Kunal, who used to draw 16 lakh per month salary as a group CEO of Saradha, in his website left no stone unturned to claim his struggle in the media industry but interestingly he didn’t mentioned anywhere that he was the group CEO of Saradha’s media segment. This he did purposely or he later deleted intentionally from the website is yet to be investigated.
He has also mentioned his visit to Singapore as a part of the government delegation with former chief minister Budhdhadeb Bhattacharjee, but how come he forget to mention his association with the Saradha Group is forcing the cops to probe deeper.
The investigating team, who are probing all the murkier deals of Kunal Ghosh during his association with Sudipta, is also trying to find out the amount of money invested in a popular Bengali television serial, Ek phone e Ek lakh (one lakh with just a phone call), bonus episodes on Channel 10 news channel where Sudipta had invested a huge amount of money. The weekly serial was very popular but investigation revealed that it was again Ghosh who pressurised Sudipta to invest money in it.
‘We have seized some documents on his direct role in the serial and other investments from his house in 1/1 Ram Mohan Roy Road. We are also investigating Kunal’s role in Balukabela.com on behalf of the company called – Strategy Media and his association with another television channel Sristi TV in West Bengal. There are are charges involving him in Sudipta’s chit fund network and we have evidences. We will reveal further development after completion of our probe,’ a senior police office said.
Balukabela.com is a film which was world premièred at London and produced by Kunal himself. Not the least the sleuths got some documents and bank statements where Kunal’s funds to run his self-owned Bengali weekly – Khoborer Kagoj (newspaper) has also come under scanner.
On Friday Kunal was produced at Bidhannagar Court and remanded in judicial custody till 13 December. Meanwhile, at Raigunge in West Bengal Sudipta was produced in court and sent to judicial custody till 14 December.