CB sleuths grill Sarathi Baba for second day in a row

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Cuttack, Aug 10:

The special investigation team (SIT) of the Crime Branch is interrogating controversial Odisha godman Sarathi Baba for the second successive day in the presence of his Chartered Accountant.

Crime Branch ADG BK Sharma revealed that the entire interrogation is being videographed.

“We will produce the Sarathi Baba in the court after his three-day remand tomorrow and appeal to the court to take him on a fresh, five-day remand for further interrogation”, Sharma said adding the Crime Branch would interrogate the Baba about his political and chit fund link in the second phase remand.

Sharma also informed that a team of Crime Branch officials is raiding the Baba’s Barimul ashram in Kendrapara today to collect more information. The second raid in the ashram in the last four days is believed to be fall-out of the marathon 1-hour long interrogation of Sarathi Baba during which the Crime Branch sleuths have unearthed fresh information about the ashram and its activities.

The Crime Branch team also visited the Kendrapara branch of Allahabad Bank, one of the three banks where Satyam Charitable Trust, the trust run by the Baba, has an account. It was, however, not immediately clear whether it had found any fresh information about the Trust’s financial transactions.

Reliable sources said a special team of Crime Branch police is all set to visit the Golkonda Hotel in Hyderabad and other locations where Sarathi Baba had visited and stayed earlier.

The Baba had told the media that he had never gone to Hyderabad nor stayed in Golkonda Hotel with any woman.

Meanwhile, a four-member Crime Branch team including three women officials began questioning the girl student of the SCB Medical College and Hospital at her house in Paradip this morning.

Soon after its arrival at Paradip, the team comprising three women officers went to the house of the girl student with the Paradip IIC.

Sources said the interrogation of the medico is on about her relationship with the Sarathi Baba.

The Crime Branch team will probe into the FIR lodged by the medico with the Mangalabag police station in Cuttack, in which she had mentioned the name inmates of the ashram who she said had been blackmailing her and had forced her to accompany the Baba during his trip to Hyderabad in the first week of July this year.