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The West Bengal police on Tuesday claimed that Sudipta Sen, the absconding Chairman and Managing Director of Saradha Group, was arrested in Srinagar.
The Kolkata-headquartered group was in the business of raising deposits in West Bengal and rest of Eastern and North Eastern States. The group went bust last week defaulting in payments to investors. Unconfirmed sources said that the company had collected around Rs 20,000 crore from depositors.
The scam has resulted in at least two confirmed cases of suicide and violent protests by depositors and agents across the State. Two public interest litigations have also been filed in Calcutta and Guwahati High Courts.
According to police, three persons bearing resemblance to Sen, Debjani Mukherjee (Saradha Group’s executive director) and Arvind Singh Chauhan, have been detained in Srinagar. A car having a West Bengal registration number has also been impounded.
“Srinagar police has detained three people who bear resemblance to the accused. We have sent a team to verify their identities and arrest them. Preliminary investigations suggest that Sudipta Sen and two other people have been apprehended,” Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner, Bidhannagar Police, told reporters at Writers’ Buildings (state Secretariat) today.
Sen and the co-accused have been charged with different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that include fraud and cheating.
The Police would present Sen and the co-accused before the Srinagar court before bringing them to Kolkata on transit remand. Sen, Mukherjee and Chauhan are likely to be brought to Kolkata on Wednesday evening.
Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot has mentioned in Parliament in March that there were “complaints of running Ponzi or multi-level marketing schemes” against nine Saradha Group outfits.
Specific Information
A “lookout notice” was issued against Sen by the State Intelligence agencies around April 20; nearly four days after he went into hiding.
According to an official of the State Home Department, specific information was passed on to the Jammu & Kashmir police after West Bengal police intercepted mobile phone signals of the accused.
A search was carried out in Sonmarg area of Srinagar in J&K and the three were picked up from a hotel there.
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