Bhubaneswar: Estranged Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Dr Damodar Rout on Wednesday pointed fingers at the integrity of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) saying the agency had closed its eyes to two major scams in Odisha and the mysterious sinking of Black Rose ship in the Bay of Bengal.
He even alleged that the Naveen Patnaik government had paid a bribe of over Rs 100 crore to the CBI officers investigating into Odisha cases for not to act tough on the ruling BJD leaders who are allegedly involved in the scams.
“The CBI is probing into three major cases in Odisha – the Rs 1 lakh crore mining scam, Rs 20,000-crore chit fund scam and the mysterious sinking of Black Rose ship in the Bay of Bengal near Paradip. Surprisingly, in all these cases the agency has not shown interest to bring the real culprits to book. The culprits are roaming free after swindling lakhs of crore rupees,” said Dr Rout.
To drive his point home, Dr Rout who was recently shunted out the BJD for raising some corruption issues, - said though several ministers of the Patnaik government were served notices by the CBI for appearances in connection with chit fund scam, none of them turned up.
“Despite being served notices, many of the ministers did not turn up . On the other hand, they got exemption. Such exemption, as people are suspecting, is possible only when the officers are paid huge bribe,” said Dr Rout.
Raising the issue of mysterious drowning of the MV Black Rose ship in the Bay of Bengal, the investigating agency CBI was mysteriously silent on the matter.
“The sinking of MV Black Rose remains mystery. None for sure knows what materials it was carrying. Some are saying iron ore and others are suspecting it was carrying suspected materials by anti-national and subversive forces. Surprisingly, the CBI is silent on this matter as Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik has managed its officers to save his own men who transporting suspicious materials in the ship,” said Dr Rout.
There was, however, no reactions for the BJD till this report was filed.
