Kolkata Police cop arrested on charges of involvement in robbery

Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) Kolkata Police said on Wednesday that a cop attached to the Special Task Force (STF) has been arrested on charges of his involvement in a robbery where a hefty amount of a foreign exchange trading entity was looted in broad daylight and on the open roads in city earlier this month.

The arrested cop has been identified as Mintu Sarkar, who was attached to the STF of the city police. Sarkar, an original resident of South Dinajpur district in the northern sector of West Bengal, was arrested late Tuesday night by the sleuths of the Detective Department of the city police, which was carrying out an investigation in the matter, an insider from the city police said.

Sarkar is the seventh arrest made in the case. Sources said that the investigation is on whether Sarkar was directly involved in the robbery or just acted as a go-between in the case.

At around 12 noon on May 5, two employees of the foreign exchange trading entity office boarded a taxi from in front of the office of the entity at Entally in central Kolkata with cash worth around Rs 2,66 crore, which they were supposed to deposit at a bank branch.

After travelling less than a kilometre, the driver of the taxi suddenly slowed down the speed of the vehicle, taking advantage of which two other persons forcibly boarded the vehicle.

Therefore, as per their direction, the taxi was taken to a secluded place nearby, where the two employees of the foreign exchange trading entity were robbed of the cash they were carrying. The miscreants escaped from the scene in the same taxi.

The two employees immediately complained to the local police station, and the sleuths of the Detective Department started investigating the matter and arrested six persons, one of whom was an employee of the same foreign exchange trading entity.

In the face of interrogation, the accused also named the arrested cop as their seventh associate in the crime. On late Tuesday night, the sleuths of the Detective Department reached his residence and started interrogating him.

As the replies from the accused were quite inconsistent, he was arrested.

--IANS

src/dan