Odisha Police seeks remand of Saradha top brass

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Police today said that they have sought the remand of Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee, chairman and director of the tainted Saradha Group, for their involvement in illegal money circulation in the state. “We have sought the remand of both Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee for questioning as two complaints have been lodged against them in the state,” said Rajesh Kumar, deputy inspector general (economic offence wing) of the crime branch of police.[caption id=“attachment_821699” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A victim of Saradha scam. PTI[/caption] He added that a petition has been filed in this regard in the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate at the district headquarters town of Balasore, around 200 km from the Odisha capital. The Kolkata-based Saradha Group went bust last month after running a ponzi scheme that is estimated to have duped over one million people. The loss from the scam is estimated at over Rs1,000 crore. According to preliminary estimates, the loss from the Saradha Group scam is about Rs70 crore in Odisha alone. Odisha Police began a probe into the operations of the Saradha Group after hundreds of depositors protested in the coastal towns of Balasore and Puri last month, alleging that the agents of the group cheated them. The protests by the investors came days after the chairman and managing director of the group was arrested by West Bengal Police from Sonmarg in Jammu and Kashmir on 23 April with two of his associates. Kumar said the police have already arrested two people linked to the Saradha Group. They include a branch manager of the group’s office at Balasore, and a man who was instrumental in the establishment of the group’s business in the state. Police have raided and sealed offices of the Saradha Group in the state after recovering incriminating documents pertaining to various chit fund schemes involving illegal circulation of money. IANS