20-days after Assam Police initiated a probe in the Assam Police Sub-Inspector (SI) recruitment scam following a question paper leakage, new angles linked to high-profile personalities are being unearthed.
In the interrogation, prime accused former DIG PK Dutta and terminated BJP leader Diban Deka has revealed several influential names that have shaken the home department and the investigating agency.
Police on Thursday raided the properties of Akshay Chand Baid—the owner of Akshay Tele Communication—a sub-contract firm in the recruitment and his associate Rubul Hazarika in Bongaigaon, which has brought an entirely different narrative to the scam.
Baid and Hazarika are reportedly absconding and have taken shelter in North Bengal. Another close associate of Dutta and Deka is under the radar of the police. Saroj Sharma, a western Assam-based businessman, whose red-coloured Range Rover car was seized by the police have revealed a link with a minister in Sarbananda Sonowal-led government.
The car bearing the registration number TN 19 Q 6464 was used by Dutta to enter Nepal via Siliguri which the CID, Assam on Thursday has seized. Sources have informed that Sharma is a close friend of Deka who helped Dutta to flee the state, however, Dutta has denied having any links with Deka.
In the interrogation, Dutta also revealed several big names including a possible link with a minister. Police sleuths have informed that Akshay Baid is a close associate of Minister Phani Bhushan Choudhary, however, they denied having any concrete evidence to link the minister in the scam.
Additionally, police sources have informed us that Dutta got in touch with Hazarika from a serving SP-rank officer and his subordinate posted in Assam’s Barak Valley.
A source informed that Dutta and Hazarika signed the money deal in the scam, which allegedly the SP fixed them. But the source didn’t reveal the name of the SP and his subordinate.
With the police investigating this scam, more depth on this story is being unearthed. The opposition have grilled Sonowal over the incompetency of his home department and claimed that the Assam Police SI scam of this scale would not have been possible without political backing
A case was registered at CID PS no. 21/2020 after CID and crime branch first raided Dutta’s residence on September 23, following the interrogation of Deka on a basis of a Facebook post.