Narada CEO complains of harassment by Kolkata police

Kolkata, June 28 (IANS) Accusing Kolkata police of harassment in the name of interrogation, Narada News CEO Mathew Samuel on Wednesday claimed that the case against him was "planted and fabricated".

"They are asking me questions that are irrelevant to the case they have summoned me for," Samuel alleged.

"From day one I am saying that it is a fabricated, planted and prepared case by Kolkata police. Just one thing I want to tell you that it is the men in uniform who are asking me all these questions," said Samuel, who went to the Calcutta High Court with his lawyer for consultation.

Samuel is being interrogated by Kolkata police in connection with an alleged extortion call to a former legislator from Bihar.

He was quizzed at the Muchipara Police Station by senior officers of Kolkata police for nearly eight hours on June 22 and was asked to come back for the interrogation on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Samuel was interrogated for three successive days at the police station in connection with the same case.

Denouncing the role of the police, Samuel's lawyer Arunava Ghosh said they were planning to lodge a case of police harassment by naming the officers involved in the interrogation.

"The officers at Muchipara Police Station are only interrogating him for four minutes and making him sit for the rest of the eight hours. They are saying they have instructions from Kolkata police headquarters - Lalbazar," Ghosh alleged.

"We will file a case against them by mentioning who all are there in the interrogation panel. This includes the Officer-in-charge of the Muchipara Police Station and the Assistant Commissioner, who is heading the panel," he added.

Police sources said Samuel was being questioned about his alleged connection with a person named Bikram Singh, who made the extortion call to former Bihar MP D.P. Yadav from a Kolkata lodge under the Muchipara Police Station's jurisdiction.

According to a FIR lodged at the police station, the former MP was asked to cough up Rs 5 crore if he did not want the alleged footage of him accepting a bribe to be made public.

Following the FIR lodged by Yadav in February, the officers raided the said lodge but failed to catch Singh.

Police, however, recovered a laptop from there with a picture that resembled Samuel's.

Samuel's company Narada News stirred a hornet's nest by releasing a sting video footage days before last year's assembly election in West Bengal that purportedly showed several senior ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders and an officer taking cash.

On Calcutta High Court orders, the Central Bureau of Investigation is probing the case and has since booked 12 senior Trinamool Congress leaders, including members of Parliament and ministers, and an Indian Police Service officer.