Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar is known to be an ‘honest’ police officer, but also has a reputation for following his master’s voice, no matter what.
Kolkata: Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s friends and former colleagues call him “polite”, “decent”, and “the smartest, most tech-savvy police officer in Bengal”. That last one is no surprise, considering he holds a degree in engineering from IIT Roorkee.
Most importantly, in the context of the recent events which have shaken up West Bengal and the entire country, they call him “honest”.
An IPS officer who was once Kumar’s boss told ThePrint: “He was one of the cleanest members of my team, and extremely upright.”
It is also said of Kumar that he is something of an ‘Eklavya’ — a die-hard follower of his master’s voice, no matter what, and no matter who the master may be. Currently, his boss is Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee and members of her Trinamool Congress party, including MPs, MLAs and ministers, have been under the CBI scanner for alleged involvement in the multi-crore Sarada and Rose Valley Ponzi scams.
Incidentally, it was Kumar — the commissioner of Bidhannagar Police at the time — who had tracked down the mastermind of the Ponzi schemes, Sudipto Sen, when he was on the run. He subsequently headed the Special Investigation Team put in charge of the case, until the CBI was asked to take over the case in 2014.
However, the CBI claims Kumar destroyed key evidence related to the scams.
Also read: CBI’s Saradha scam probe is not being monitored by Supreme Court
Questions on timing
The scandal erupted in the Trinamool Congress’ face in April 2013, barely two years after it dethroned the Left in a high-profile election and swept to power. Since then, the opposition — the BJP in particular — has repeatedly brought up the names of Trinamool leaders Madan Mitra, Mukul Roy and Banerjee herself in speeches.
From Narendra Modi to Amit Shah to one-time Bengal in-charge Siddharth Nath Singh, BJP leaders have used the phrases ‘bhaag Madan bhaag’ (run Madan run), ‘bhaag Mukul bhaag’ and even ‘bhaag Mamata bhaag’ to launch their attacks against Banerjee’s government and its alleged involvement in Ponzi schemes.
The CBI subsequently arrested Mitra, followed by other top Trinamool leaders, including MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Tapas Paul.
But the CBI’s sudden decision to go after the less visible members of Banerjee’s administration has raised questions, especially about the timing.
“With barely a month to go before elections are announced, the CBI’s attempt to crack down on the state police force is clearly intended to cripple the law and order situation in the state,” said a Trinamool leader.
“If you see the CBI as a tool with which the ruling parties at the Centre harass rivals, as it has often been accused of, it serves to create public distaste, especially before elections.”
Also read: Congress backs Mamata over face-off with CBI, says Modi-Shah using agency as ‘election agents’
CBI’s allegations
But the CBI claims that Kumar is not clean. He was put in charge of probing the scam in 2013, before the CBI finally took over in 2014, after several rounds of litigation by political rivals of the Trinamool.
Sources told ThePrint that mastermind Sen had said during interrogation that he used to keep a diary in which he recorded every single financial dealing. That diary — red and hardbound — has gone missing.
Sources claim it was only when the CBI was given charge of the interrogation that there was a scurry to remove the documents.
“The documents were kept in a locker in a bank, and when the CBI went to recover the papers they were told that the former investigators had taken them away just hours back,” a source said.
The Trinamool Congress and the state government have denied these charges. Banerjee is on a sit-in protest demanding that CBI stop the political vendetta. But the CBI says that it will not stop until it finds the missing papers.