Saradha's shady side: The empire of Matang Sinh

Anil Gowswami was asked to quit as the Home Secretary after it was alleged that he had tried to prevent the arrest of Matang Sinh in connection with the Saradha scam.

While this was one disgraceful incident in the investigations into the scam, the fact of the matter is that this seems to be just the beginning.

Questions about how many people did Sinh have on his side within the bureaucracy are being asked and the CBI today is in possession of several hours of CCTV footage which go on to show the numerous officials and politicians who had visited his house.

Explicit influence:

CBI officials tell Oneindia that the kind of influence that Sinh had over his own party leaders from the Congress and also several bureaucrats explains a lot.

The former member of the Rajya Sabha from the Congress had a great influence on officials and politicians and this picture becomes clear while analyzing the CCTV recordings.

Sinh at his residence recorded everything thanks to the several CCTVs that he had installed. Meetings with police officials, bureaucrats and also politicians were recorded and there are several hours of footage.

All the footage that was collected by the CBI is now with the Prime Minister's Office and after this is examined thoroughly several more heads are going to roll, a CBI official informed.

Clout even after expulsion:

Not many may recall that Sinh had been expelled from the Congress in the year 1998 after he had made remarks against Sonia Gandhi.

However, after the UPA came to power Sinh strangely was still treated as a VIP and provided plus security.

In the year 2012 when the Z plus security cover was being reviewed by the government, it was Digvijaya Singh who shot off a letter to the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh urging him to not to withdraw his cover.

Singh had also made attempts the previous year to bring Sinh back into the Congress.

The irony is that Sinh's security cover continued to remain in force despite the a recommendation by the Protection Review Group recommending the withdrawal of Z plus security to Sinh.

The current government which has not yet acted upon his security cover is reviewing the same now.

Setting traps:

The case of Matang Sinh is strange when compared to the rest of the Saradha accused. It is alleged that Sinh had entered into a deal with Saradha boss, Sudipta Sen to oversee the purchase of the NE-Bangla news channel.

He is alleged to have taken Rs 27 crore from Sen for this deal. The deal, however, did not go through and Sen mentions in his confession to the CBI that the money that he had paid Sinh was never returned either.

CBI sources say that Sinh managed to get away because he was good at setting traps. Every word that he spoke to either an official or a politician was recorded.

This gave him the upper arm and he almost resorted to blackmailing tactics. He had too much information on all of them which helped him, the CBI official pointed out.

With this kind of information, Sinh had a major say in lot of matters ranging from transfers to promotions of officials.

He had even taken head on an Intelligence Bureau official in Assam. This IB officer who is upright and only did his duty had earned the wrath of Sinh.

In the year 2010, there was a firing incident on Sinh's car. However, this IB official found that it was fake and stage managed and when the same was reported, Sinh used his influence and transferred him out of Assam.