Kolkata: Is senior IPS officer Rajeev Kumar supervising the legal duel with the CBI from his official residence 34, Park Street? Or is he keeping a close watch on the developments from some other safe house here after evading multiple summons from the central probe agency for appearing before investigators in connection with the Saradha scam probe?
Has Kumar, the present additional director general of the state Criminal Investigation Department silently slipped out of the city -- these are the million-dollar questions floating all around as the CBI prepares to launch a massive manhunt to pinpoint the location of supposedly the most discussed, and most-wanted man in Kolkata now.
The former Kolkata Police Commissioner was last seen in public on Friday, when the Calcutta High Court withdrew the interim protection from arrest given to him in the ponzi scam case.
Since then, Kumar -- officially on leave from September 9 to 25 -- has been virtually "incommunicado" -- the term was used by the state police Director General Virendra in a formal response to a letter from the CBI seeking information about his whereabouts.
According to CBI sources, Kumar's two official mobile numbers and the mobile phone of his bodyguard were switched off. The CBI officers who went to the Park Street house on Friday to serve a notice to him for appearing before them for questioning also could not meet him. The notice was apparently received by a relative.
Over the past five days, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has served two more notices on the 1989 batch IPS Officer, but none of them were received by him personally.
With Kumar disappearing from the public eye -- at least till this moment -- and the CBI hardening its stand to get him in its custody, the battle of attrition between the winner of the 2015 President's medal and the high-profile agency is only getting more and more interesting.
The CBI officers have been holding frequent meetings, and trying to make use of their sources to pinpoint Kumar's location. It formed a 12-member special team to track down the shrewd officer.
