No arrest yet, chit fund scam-hit approach EC

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 6

Almost two weeks after state Finance Minister Parminder Dhindsa directed the Punjab Police to arrest the allegedly influential accused in the Rs 10,000 crore Crown Chit Fund scam, not a single person has been arrested.

Though a Chajli-based farmer Harpreet Singh Khalsa committed suicide allegedly after not getting his Rs 9.8 lakh invested money back, the state government has not laid hands on the miscreants.

Following the suicide, protests by chit fund investors and a series by The Tribune on the scam, the Finance Minister had called a meeting of the investors and SIT on December 24. There, he directed the SIT to arrest the accused immediately.

After waiting for justice for almost a year and then for two weeks after the assurance of the Finance Minister, the harassed investors — represented by the Crown Chit Fund Sangharsh Committee — have approached the Election Commission seeking its intervention.

The committee in a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer VK Singh today said the ill-gotten money was being used by some politicians who had been protecting the accused.

They have also alleged that the Punjab Police was under pressure of some influential politicians who had been protecting the accused all these months.

Though the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Punjab Police on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court had registered an FIR against the Crown Co-operative Fund Society and five other chit fund companies in October last year, but the police did not go after the accused.

“The accused are not only roaming freely but some of them are also disposing of their property as they fear attachment of the assets,” said Jai Kumar, spokesperson of the committee. He said the EC should intervene as the accused are politically well-connected. Though Jaskaran Singh, head of the SIT,was not available for comments, police sources said the SIT recently recorded revised statements of the duped investors. “The police are on the job but everything can’t be revealed to the public beforehand,” he said.