A situation has arisen with the CBI reaching the Kolkata police chief’s house to interrogate him in the wake of his absence for the last few days, apparently absconding, fearing arrest on the chit fund scams. The CM of West Bengal promptly reaches the police chief’s house in an unprecedented manner and has also followed with a characteristic dharna, against the CBI’s move. She has branded the CBI action as vindictive one by Modi, Amit Shah combine.
The Kolkata Police claims that the CBI had no papers to interrogate the city police commissioner and the CBI claims to the contrary. Nowhere in independent India has the state police entered into a conflict with the central police force in the manner witnessed.
I guess the CBI will move the home ministry, the governor and the court and the CM will take to the streets and mobilize her cadres to paralyze the state against the CBI high-handedness.
The chit funds papers, claimed to have been in the custody of the Commissioner of Police, Rajeev Kumar, now absconding, are reportedly destroyed on which basis the CBI swung into action. West Bengal has been a fertile ground for scamsters in which many political leaders have been involved in the past. The entire country was witness to a series of a sting operation in which many TMC leaders were implicated. The investigations strangely have been going on slowly for the last many years, despite clinching evidence.
The central forces have landed and are guarding Nizam Palace, where the police chief may be interrogated. The CM should’ve resorted to judicial recourse if she had felt that the central government was vindictive towards the state and its officers. By visiting the residence of the Commissioner’s residence and promptly staging a dharna to express her support towards the accused policeman, she may have revealed her unease and weakness.
If the policeman has erred by the destruction of crucial evidence, he has to face the law, just like any other lesser mortal. Simply blaming Modi for the indiscretions of party colleagues may not hold good in the image of the CM, a PM aspirant as well!
This is not the Bengal of Netaji, Bengal of Tagore, Bengal of Jagdish Bose, Bengal of CR Das, or the Bengal of many greats! This is a different Bengal, thick-skinned and remorseless.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
