Police officer blackmailing me, says suspended TMC MP Kunal Ghosh

A day after dragging West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's name into the Saradha scam, suspended Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh on Saturday accused a senior police officer of "blackmailing and threatening" him.

Grilled multiple times by the Bidhannagar police for his alleged complicity in the multicrore Saradha Group chit fund scam, Ghosh said he was filing a first information report against an officer of the Bidhannagar police who has been threatening and blackmailing him to make a statement about his involvement in the scam.

He however did not name the officer.

"I am here to file an FIR against (the officer) for blackmailing. He has been compelling me to make a statement and threatened me to arrest if I did not make a statement," said Ghosh before entering the Bidhannagar South Police station to formally lodge the FIR.

Beside the police interrogation, Ghosh who earlier headed Saradha's media arm, has been repeatedly quizzed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the Enforcement Directorate.

Suspended by the Trinamool for speaking against his own party, Ghosh on Friday dropped a bombshell claiming Saradha's media arm had been set up with the "sole aim of promoting Banerjee as the country's next prime minister".

Ghosh, who has repeatedly claimed he was being made a scapegoat and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI), said he has written to the prime minister requesting the investigation be handed over to the country's premier investigative agency.

"I have written to the prime minister," added Ghosh.

Meanwhile opposition Left Front as well as the Congress reiterated their demand for the CBI to investigate the biggest financial scandal to hit the state.

"She (Banerjee) always has clamored for a CBI probe into anything and everything, but why is not she willing now?" said Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Front chairman Biman Bose too demanded a CBI probe saying: "Every now and then names of influential people are coming out, the things Ghosh and others are saying, it is imperative that the matter be probed by the CBI so that the entire truth is revealed".