The arrest of West Bengal IPS officer S.M.H. Mirza by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday has sent chills down the spine of many senior Trinamool Congress leaders, who were seen taking bribe in a sting operation conducted by the Narada news agency, ahead of the 2016 assembly elections.
The videos showed a dozen West Bengal politicians taking money. Two of those TMC leaders are now with the Bharatiya Janata Party—Mukul Roy and Sovan Chatterjee. Another leader, Sultan Ahmed, is dead.
Shortly after Mirza's arrest, Roy was called by the CBI on Friday.
While Roy was not seen taking money in the video, Chatterjee was seen accepting it. The others who were seen in the footage include TMC leaders like Madan Mitra, cabinet ministers like Subrata Mukherjee, Suvendu Adhikari and Firhad Hakim, and MPs like Saugata Roy and Aparupa Poddar.
The CBI is now probing possible money laundering by those seen in the footage. The sting, however, failed to make a dent in TMC's political fortunes as the party returned to power emphatically.
But, the Supreme Court later ordered a CBI inquiry based on a public interest litigation even as the state government fought hard to oppose it.
CBI sources said that Mirza, a 2005-batch IPS officer, was arrested after he couldn't tell the probing agency whom he gave the Rs 1.8 crore he got from Mathew Samuel—the journalist who conducted the sting operation—to. It was known that Mirza organised Samuel's appointments with all the high-profile ruling party leaders.
Mirza will be in CBI custody for five days during which it will investigate the money trail.
All the leaders accused in the case have appeared before the CBI after much delay to give their voice samples. These are being matched with the voices in the videos.
When asked whether several leaders are facing arrest, a CBI officer said, “Wait and see. Lot of things need to be done.”
Mirza was the Superintendent of Police in Burdwan when the sting operation was done. After the controversy erupted, he was shifted to Kolkata’s CID as special superintendent. Surprisingly, last year, after he was grilled for more than seven hours by the CBI, Mirza was suspended by the Mamata Banerjee government.
Though the video was released just before the 2016 assembly elections, the sting operation was done several months ago. So, the CBI is also probing whether it was used for any other illegal purposes.
Mukul Roy has pleaded his innocence in the case.
“I was not at all seen taking money from the man (Samuel). He discussed business-related mater with me and I advised him to do that in Burdwan,” said Roy.
Congress state president Somen Mitra predicted that many heads will roll now.
“The IPS officer [Mirza] is a little one. What about the rests? All of them would have to pay the price,” said Mitra.
Senior Cabinet Minister Partha Chatterjee refused to make any comment on the development.
The case has sparked off a huge furore in the state especially when another top police officer, Rajeev Kumar, is fighting for anticipatory bail in the Calcutta High Court in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam.
