TMC leader's son held in Bengal's Rs 350 crore chit fund scam

Kolkata, Oct 25 (IANS) Tahsin Ahmed, son of Shakil Ahmed aka Master Shakil, co-president of Trinamool Congress’s minority wing in West Burdwan district of West Bengal, who had gone absconding earlier this week after his involvement in a Rs 350 crore chit fund scam in the state surfaced, had been finally arrested by the state police on Saturday evening.

State police sources said that he was arrested from a Jharkhand-bound bus run by an inter-state bus service operator near Chandrachud intersection on National Highway 19. He had plans to escape to Jharkhand. Gold worth Rs 31 lakh was seized from his possession.

The main allegation against Tahsin Ahmed was that he collected deposits worth around Rs 350 crore from around 3,000 individuals in Asansol through an unlicensed corporate entity operating out of the industrial township of Asansol in West Burdwan district.

He promised 14 per cent monthly returns, i.e., Rs 2.8 lakh on Rs 1 lakh investment in 20 months. However, he went absconding on October 15, which was the day for payment of returns to the depositors.

Instead, he released a video message on the wall of his social media page expressing his inability to pay the assured returns to the depositors by the promised deadline of October 20.

The matter was first brought to public notice on Thursday by the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, through a social media post, where he also shared the video message by Tahsin Ahmed.

In his post, the LoP demanded the immediate arrest of Tahsin Ahmed as well as a probe by central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in the matter. He also demanded full repayment of the deposits collected by the said entity to the depositors.

Later, the BJP’s Information Technology cell chief and the party’s central observer for West Bengal, Amit Malviya, also made a similar post on his social media handle, alleging that most of the depositors who lost their money by investing in that said entity were from the Muslim community.

Trinamool Congress leadership had already started distancing itself from both the accused and his father. The president of Trinamool Congress’s minority wing in West Burdwan district, Mehfuzul Hasan, said that neither Tahsin Ahmed nor his father Shakil Ahmed has any connection with the ruling party anymore.

“Shakil Ahmed was the co-president of our party’s minority cell in West Burdwan district before. But right now he has no connection with the party,” Hasan said.

--IANS

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