Kolkata, The Kolkata police on Friday raided two premises – one in the city and another in the posh satellite township of Salt Lake – of a company, allegedly linked to former interim Central Bureau of Investigation director M Nageshwar Rao.
Rao, however, denied any link with the said company Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd.
A team of Kolkata police officers was conducting a search operation at Angelina Mercantile’s office in Clive Row in the Dalhousie area of the city, sources said.
Sources said Rao’s wife M Sandhya and another relative were involved in some financial transaction with the company.
A complaint had been filed in the Bowbazar police station regarding the company.
Another group of officers conducted raid at the residence-cum-office of the company owned by one Praveen Agarwal.
A senior police officer, however, denied any link between the raid and Rao, saying the company was being raided as the owner has not “registered his firm” as per law.
Rao, on the other hand, issued a press statement, which he had earlier given to the media on October 30, last year, saying his wife had in 2010 taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh from the company owned by Agarwal, “a long time family friend”.
She used the money to buy a property in Guntur, and in 2011 sold off her ancestral agricultural land and transferred the money to Angela Maercantile, which deducted the earlier loan, added interest and returned the excess amount to her in 2014.
“Due intimation was given to competent authorities about borrowing of the property immediately… The question of any unaccounted money does not arise at all,” he said in the statement.
The development comes a day before Kolkata police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar is slated to be questioned by a crack team of CBI officials in Shillong in connection with the ponzi scheme scam.
Kumar had headed the Special Investigation Team set up by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to probe the Saradha ponzi scheme scam after it came to light in 2013. A year later, the Supreme Court handed over the scam investigation to the CBI.
The CBI has alleged that Kumar destroyed, destructed and tampered with material evidence in the form of call detail records of the prime accused and potential accused persons.
In an affidavit before the Supreme Court, the CBI has also claimed that there are large number of hard discs and other material in Kumar’s possession.
There was an ugly face-off between the CBI and the Kolkata police on February 3 when the federal agency officers showed up near his house to question him.
The issue snowballed when chief minister Mamata Banerjee started a sit-in in a bid to “save the constitution and federal structure of the country”.
The Supreme Court on February 5 directed Kumar to present himself before the CBI for questioning in Shillong and asked him to cooperate with the agency. It has also directed the CBI not to use any coercive methods including arrest against him.
