Kolkata: Interrogation of the mastermind behind the fake vaccination case, Debanjan Deb has brought forward stunning revelations making to that of incarcerated Saradha chit fund scam swindler, Sudipta Sen. Sleuths say Debanjan Deb had intentions to open multiple companies and was also planning to own a second division football club. And those were the reasons behind his organising social welfare programmes like vaccination camps, sanitisers and mask distribution camps and the likes where he could rub shoulders with politicians and later draw dividends from his connection.
Veteran cops with years of experience in handling such soft-spoken and sophisticated white-collar criminals feel that Deb had the quality of easily winning the hearts of the people and getting close to them, a quality that was evident in the kingpin of the Saradha scam as well. He was extremely soft-spoken and articulate and through these qualities, he was successful to a great extent to be close to the influential sections of the society.
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"But Sen and Deb had been able to project a selfless image. Hence, in both cases, before the scam was busted none could imagine that behind the façade of that selfless image there was such a highly organized criminal brain," said an official of the city police probing the matter.
In fact, both Sen and Deb had stark similarities in characteristics and style of functioning. Pictures and videos of both Sen and Deb along with several influential leaders and ministers in several programmes surfaced. Once the-then commissioner of Kolkata Police and the current chief security adviser to the state government, Surojit Kar Purakayastha was seen along with Sen. Similarly, in some pictures Deb was spotted along with top IPS officers from the state in the same daises.
Trinamool leaders and ministers with whom Deb was spotted include Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Debasish Kumar, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Noyona Bandopadhyay and Tapas Roy, among others. The current commissioner of Chandernagar, Gourav Sharma too was spotted cutting the ribbon at a programme with Deb standing beside him. These are some of the striking similarities between Sen and Deb.
Another point of similarity between the two scamsters was their articulation. Before the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam got busted, Sen's speeches in different programmes used to mesmerize the listeners. Many of the duped investors in Saradha's fiscal schemes later admitted that they agreed to invest after being attracted by Sen's style of presentation.
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Similarly, during interrogation, the employees and associates of the fake organization floated by Deb told the cops that they could never realize that they were employed in a fake company. "They told us that whenever they asked for vaccines even during the lockdown period, Deb used to arrange the purported vaccines within hours. None of his staff complained about his misbehaviour ever. He used to give a patient hearing to the suggestion given by staff. The summary is that his behaviour and mannerism never created any doubt about him," a probe official said. To recall, amicable behaviour towards subordinate staff was a quality that was evident in the Saradha scamster as well.
Apart from that, Deb got himself involved in a number of social welfare activities which he carefully highlighted using social media. During the last Ganga Sagar Mela in Sagar Islands, he organized a camp for feeding the orphan children. Apart from that, during the lockdown period, he used to move around in the streets of Kolkata to feed the stray dogs.
Sen expanded his connections with the influential section in the society by being present in different social welfare activities and sometimes providing funds for the same. Similarly, Debanjan organized similar social-welfare programmes like vaccination camp, mask-sanitiser distribution etc exactly with the intention of expanding his connections with the influential section including ministers, politicians and top police officers among others. Like Sudipta Sen, Debanjan’s dreams were also quite big. As said by Sen himself once, he intended to own all the major media houses at some point of time. Similarly, in face of interrogation, Debanjan claimed that his dream was to open multiple companies and also own a second division football club.
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