 "Saradha's Sudipta Sen nabbed in Kashmir")
“Three people — (Saradha Group CMD) Sudipta Sen, Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan — have been detained. The verification process is on. Our teams will get them back here tomorrow,” police officials said at Writers’ Building, the state secretariat.
Reports indicated Sen had left Kolkata in the wee hours of April 10 for Jharkhand in a black Scorpio that had a West Bengal number plate, with Chauhan. He halted in Ranchi for a night and then proceeded for North India with his associates. Mukherjee, who was a director on several Saradha boards until recently and is known to be Sen’s close aide, joined them later in North India.
The driver, left behind in Ranchi, provided the first clue. The police then checked with the hotel CCTV footage and tracked his route across states through toll plazas.
The trio was finally sighted in Srinagar this morning; they had checked in last night in a Sonmarg hotel. The local police in Kashmir, on a tip-off from the Kolkata police, detained them. Sen’s wife and son had been packed off to Noida earlier.
Even as Sen was caught, panic among depositors and agents continued unabated. A 28-year-old Saradha agent from Jangipara in Murshidabad today attempted suicide by consuming sleeping pills. Residences of some Saradha agents in the district were attacked by depositors, who fled with whatever they could lay their hands on.
Skeletons from the Saradha cupboard continued to tumble out. The Hooghly factory of Global Motors, acquired by Saradha sometime back, had closed down in 2011. But 150 of its employees had been kept on rolls to show, when agents made visits, that all was hunky dory and operations were on in full swing.
With news of problems spreading fast, redemption panic surrounding Saradha’s collective investment schemes spilled over to other companies, too.
Rose Valley offices at Tamluk in East Medinipur and Ranigunj in Barddhaman were vandalised by depositors and agents, even as the company assured them their money was safe.
“They were not depositors or agents; they are hooligans who attacked our offices. We are a cash-rich company and have been doing this for more than a decade,” Rose Valley Chairman Gautam Kundu said. He clarified his company was not into collective investment schemes. “We offer holiday membership plans,” he said.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India had fined the company earlier this year for issuing debentures illegally. Kundu said the matter was sub judice but the realty company had been wound up after the Sebi order.
Rose Valley even issued an advertisement today to say the company should not be equated with the ongoing controversy affecting another group.
Other companies also rushed to allay fears. MPS issued an advertisement to say it was running collective investment schemes in line with a court order. The company disclosed collections under the scheme it was running and invited agents to join its network.
Fear had struck early, when the office of Greenbang, North Bengal, was ransacked by depositors on Sunday after a group mobbed its premises to claim money.