Kolkata Police summons CBI Joint Director in month-old case of alleged torture

KOLKATA: The Kolkata police has sent a notice to CBI Joint Director Pankaj Srivastava, asking him to appear before the investigating officer at the Bhawanipur police station here in connection with a complaint registered against him last month.

According to a senior officer of the Kolkata Police, Srivastava has been directed to appear before the investigating officer within seven days in connection with the case registered last month.

The summon notice was sent to his office here Thursday when Srivastava was not present, the officer said.

Based on the complaint, lodged by one Vaibhav Khattar with the Bhawanipore police station about the CBI illegally detaining and torturing him in a case in which he claimed he had no connection, police started its investigation.

When contacted, a senior CBI official here denied receiving any such communication from the Kolkata Police "We have not received anything from the Kolkata Police," he said.

Srivastava could not be reached for his comments. Khattar, an employee of a private mill in West Bengal, was raided by the federal investigating agency August last year in connection with its investigation into alleged involvement of the mill owner, Dipesh Chandak, in a case of multi-crore fodder scam that had happened in Bihar in the early 90s.

The Kolkata Police summon to the CBI Joint Director (East) comes close on heels of a fierce tiff between the premier investigating agency and the city police over its action against outgoing Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in Sarada chit fund scam.

The incident had blown into a major confrontation between the Centre and the West Bengal government after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sat on dharna against the CBI action.