Mamata Sends Peace Signals To Modi

With the CBI closing in on her de facto number two, IPS officer Rajeev Kumar, Mamata Banerjee sues for peace with the Centre.

- Rabi Banerjee

For The Past 20 years, Rajeev Kumar’s name evoked fear in the minds of criminals. The former commissioner of Kolkata Police had relentlessly hunted down terrorists like Aftab Ansari of the Indian Mujahideen, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh leader Kausar and Maoist leader Kishanji. But, today, the hunter has become the hunted as the CBI seeks his custody in the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams, said to be worth more than ₹1 lakh crore.

Kumar, who serves as additional director general of the West Bengal criminal investigation department, has been the blue-eyed boy of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Her predecessors Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Jyoti Basu, too, were quite fond of him. While Basu gave him key district postings, Bhattacharjee made him the first chief of the special task force set up by the Kolkata Police.

Today, however, Kumar is being chased by the CBI, which took over the chit fund scam cases in 2014. The agency reportedly does not think that Kumar benefited monetarily from the scam, but it is investigating whether he shielded powerful politicians by destroying and hiding evidence. The CBI has so far made 29 arrests and has filed seven charge-sheets in the Saradha case alone. It wants to interrogate Kumar as he was in charge of the special investigation team formed by the Mamata government to investigate the scams. Saradha boss Sudipta Sen and his deputy Debjani Mukherjee told the CBI that they had given Kumar all documents related to payments made by the company. Sen and Mukherjee were arrested in 2013 by a special team from the Bidhannagar police commissionerate, which was headed by Kumar back then.