CBI to probe all chit fund cases in Tripura: CM
Agartala, April 29: The BJP government in Tripura has handed over all the 74 chit fund cases from the SIT to the CBI to probe the unlawful collection of money from the people by the illegal chit fund organisations during the tenure of the previous Left Front government, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb announced here on Sunday.
"We have recently proposed to Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to ask CBI to probe all the 74 cases pending against various chit fund and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Organisations). The DoPT accordingly agreed to the state government's proposal," the Chief Minister told the media.
"The previous Left Front government in various ways backed the unauthorised chit fund organisations and NBFCs to loot huge amount of money from thousands and lakhs of people. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led government was averse to give all the cases related to chit fund organisations and NBFCs to CBI," he said.
Deb said his government's vision was to make Tripura a corruption and drugs free state as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had envisioned for the country.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last week questioned former Left Front Finance, PWD and Health Minister Badal Chowdhury and former Social Welfare and Social Education Minister Bijita Nath in connection with a Kolkata-based Rose Valley chit fund scam case.
The CBI in June last year questioned Nath and CPI-M central committee member Gautam Das in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam.
The central agency on Thursday also separately interrogated two former private secretaries of Badal Chowdhury -- Sekhar Datta and Manik Lal Dey -- at the CBI office here over the same chit fund scam.
CPI-M central committee member and party's state secretary Bijan Dhar said it was widely known that the CBI had been used by the ruling parties at the Centre.
"No CPI-M leader and former Left Front ministers were involved with any chit fund organisations," Dhar told the media adding that "if CBI wants any information from the party leaders they would share, there is no problem in it".
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) charged the previous Left Front government with promoting illegal chit fund organisations and unauthorised NBFCs in Tripura.
The erstwhile Left Front government in Tripura had enacted a law in 2000 to deal with the illegal NBFCs and chit fund organisations and since 2016 began confiscating all movable and immovable properties of the Rose Valley chit fund organisation in the state.
The Rose Valley is now under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI, and its sole proprietor and Chairman Gautam Kundu was arrested in Kolkata in 2015.
The Tripura High Court had in 2015 asked the state government to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the activities of unlawful NBFCs and chit fund organisations.
In May 2013, the earlier Left government had referred 37 cases related to chit fund companies and NBFCs to the CBI. The central probe agency, however, took up only five cases.
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Explosion near CRPF School in Delhi caused by lit cigarette butts: Report
New Delhi: The investigation team that probed the explosion that took place outside the CRPF School in the Prashant Vihar area of the city on October 20 morning has reportedly not found any terror force behind the blast.
The investigation team, consisting of Delhi Police and staff members from central agencies, has stated in its report that cigarette butts thrown by a local resident might have come in contact with industrial waste and have caused the explosion. Circumstantial evidence does not show the incident to have a terror angle to it, reports The Indian Express.
The Delhi Police, the city bomb squad and the fire brigade had rushed to the spot following the explosion, which was initially believed to have been caused by a crude bomb. The forensic experts who inspected the spot hinted at the presence of potassium chlorate, hydrogen peroxide and some electrical wires there. The school wall had been damaged and the windows of a car nearby had shattered in the explosion.
The investigation team scanned the CCTV camera footage and zeroed in on around 10 people questioned. A senior police officer said that a North Delhi-based businessman from Prashant Vihar was found to be present at the spot around five minutes before the explosion, as he had come there on Sunday morning to walk his dog. The CCTV footage showed him smoking and, after questioning him, the team concluded that he had left lit cigarette butts before leaving the spot, the officer added.
The spot where the explosion took place is learned to have been usually used for dumping garbage and also has a public urinal.
An officer has said that the Delhi Police had consulted forensic and technical experts of the National Security Guard regarding the things found on the explosion site but are yet to get the report. The officer added that they have found no detonator so far.
