Saradha company CEO quizzed, another chit fund agent kills himself

Kolkata : A deposit firm agent committed suicide, while police quizzed a CEO of a company under the Saradha group banner Monday as West Bengal continued to grapple with the fallout of the chit fund scam, purported to be the biggest financial scandal to hit the state.

Ujjwal Samaddar, 27, who worked for Sanmarg, a chit fund company, was found hanging Sunday in his home in north 24 Parganas district’s Basirhatt.

He was being hounded by depositors who have been seeking refund of their money after the Saradha Group went bust in April, police said.

In another incident, a school student who had invested nearly Rs.75,000 in the Saradha Group, is battling for his life in a hospital after he consumed pesticide Sunday.

Class 11 student Sahanur Islam, who also worked as a part-time security guard, was under depression ever since the tainted Saradha Group went bust.

“He had been depositing the money in the company for the marriage of his elder sister. After the collapse of the company, he tried to get his investment back, but could not. He had been depressed for a quite a few days and last night (Sunday) he tried to kill himself by consuming pesticide,” said Islam’s father.

Meanwhile, the state police summoned for questioning the CEO of Sarasha Realty Subir Das.

“Saradha Realty Pvt Ltd.’s CEO Subir Das was brought in today (Monday) for interrogation. He had joined Saradha as CEO in July 2008. Das was appointed as CEO for his expertise in money marketing,” Bidhannagar Deputy Commissioner of Police Arnab Ghosh told media persons here.

According to Ghosh, Das left the group after working for about a year.

Similarly, a former army officer – Col. (retd.) Soumitra Ray – who was in-charge of construction and was interrogated by police Sunday, said he had severed ties with the now collapsed group in December 2012.

“Ray had doubts as to whether Saradha was interested in doing construction activities at all, as nothing was being done to implement the project. So he felt it was better to quit,” Ghosh explained.

Saradha Group CEO Sudipta Sen, and two of his close aides were arrested April 23 from Sonmarg in Jammu and Kashmir, days after the Group collapsed, unable to repay lakhs of depositors – most of them poor people from villages and small towns – who had parked their hard earned money with its companies, lured by promise of huge returns.

A number of agents and depositors of Saradha and similar chit fund companies have committed suicide, while offices of a large number of such dubious concerns operating in the state have been attacked.