Kolkata, Nov 7 (IANS) Former West Bengal Tourism Minister and former Minister of State for Information & Cultural Affairs Indranil Sen appears increasingly isolated within his own family in the multi-crore fake UNESCO-tagged Durga Puja pass scam, for which he was arrested last month.
First, his wife, Madhuchhanda Sen, who owns “Mass Art”, the entity through which the fake passes were allegedly sold, said during interrogation that the said entity was in her name only on paper and all administrative and operational decisions about the entity were taken by her husband.
She also claimed that her role in “Mass Art” was just limited to signing on the dotted lines as instructed by her husband.
Now, Sen’s daughter, Averi Sen, who was also questioned for several hours by investigating officers at Kolkata Police headquarters, Lalbazar in Central Kolkata, earlier this week, almost echoed her mother on this issue, confirmed a city police source.
Averi was questioned about the huge sums of money transferred to two corporate entities in her name, ISCAPE and Myra. Like her mother, she also claimed that the two corporate entities were in her name just on paper and her role was limited to signing on the dotted lines as instructed by her father.
“The statements of Sen’s wife and mother corroborate the findings of the investigating officers that, in an attempt to keep himself in the fake pass case as well as other cases relating to tendering irregularities in both the state tourism and information & cultural affairs departments, Sen operated from behind in all these corporate entities, keeping his family members in the forefront. In fact, instead of using his own bank accounts, he used the accounts in the names of his family members or the corporate entities in their names for financial transactions,” the city police insider said.
Meanwhile, he added, Sen, who is in police custody now, had started passing the buck to Dhrubojytri Basu, a top official of “Mass Art”, who was arrested earlier this week.
Sen will be produced before a lower court in Kolkata on November 10. On the other hand, Basu will be presented at the same court on November 13.
Besides, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Kolkata Police, the fake puja pass case is also being probed by the ED.
–IANS
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