Thursday, Apr 25, 2013

Kolkata: Sudipto Sen, the prime accused for siphoning of billions of rupees has now been charged with fraud and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code. Sen who was brought back to the city on late Wednesday evening was produced in a local court on Thursday where he was sent to 15 days police custody for further investigation.

During interrogation, Sen revealed that entering the media business led to the fall of his empire, which consisted of numerous hotels, a motorcycle factory, travel & tourism business, realty business and a cement factory along with four newspapers and five television channels that he had purchased in early 2010.

Sen claimed that during 2008, Kunal Ghosh, presently a Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) member of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), had started a vigorous campaign against his company while he worked for the Bengali daily ‘Pratidin’, whose owner Srinjay Bose is also a TMC member.

Ghosh meet the then finance minister of Bengal Asim Dasgupta and started campaigning even more vigorously, which made him nervous and pushed him towards buying various media houses. He had to pay the Bengali daily Rs. 6 million and paid Ghosh Rs. 1.5 million per month as salary for protecting his chit fund business, as they claimed their proximity to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Sen also named Debabrata Sarkar, secretary of city’s premier football club East Bengal, who had taken Rs. 50 million as one time payment and Rs 8 million every month thereof to protect him from investigation by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) considering his close proximity with SEBI chairman and present President of India Pranab Mukherjee.

He also claimed that many of his employees have cheated the company. He was using financial software called ‘safari’, which did not have direct links with the bank account. Many of his employees collected money in the name of the company and issued certificates but that was not deposited in the company’s accounts.

According to police officers interrogating Sen, “he has been cooperating till now and has given us information as and when asked.” But what has puzzled the investigators is his nonchalant way of handling the whole issue even after having been charged with such grievous crime. His accomplish, Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan were equally clam during interrogation. “During the journey from Kashmir, all of them behaved as if they were returning from a holiday and nothing much has happened,” said a police officer who went to Sonmarg to arrest Sen.

Sen’s brush with law is not new, but for a very different reason. In the early 1970’s he was known as Shankaraditya Sen, an ambitious Naxal leader, who served time in the prison for the Ultras cause. He was good orator and had extraordinary leadership skills and was seen as a possible leader even by well-known Naxalite leaders like Charu Mazumdar. His estranged siblings even today do not know what transformed the Left radical to a capitalist, who then went on to become a land shark and eventually a player in the illicit money market.

“He was a very idealistic person and believed in eradicating capitalism. What made him transform himself and even change his name is a complete mystery to us. He didn’t even attend our mother’s funeral,” said his younger brother, unwilling to be named.

By Archisman Dinda Correspondent

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