News Item: 00003

19th Oct 2006

Police in Santiniketan quiz fake antique racketeers

Source: http://www.expressindia.com

Express India reports from Kolkata that a CBI team has arrived in Santiniketan to interrogate those arrested in connection with the fake antique racket. The team, led by DSP P Bose, started its investigation to ascertain whether the members of the racket had any link with the Nobel medallion and memorabilia theft.

A raid was conducted at a village in Burdwan district in connection with the antique theft that was unearthed on Tuesday, police said today. However, the raid last night at a house in Pichkurir Dhal did not yield much as the owner had already fled, sub-divisional police officer Debashish Dhar said. He was suspected to be a member of the racket, Dhar said.

This came to light during the interrogation of the six persons arrested since Tuesday. The arrests were made after the police busted an antique theft racket with the recovery of rare artefacts and antiques, oil-paintings and moulded figurines from a studio-cum-art gallery in Bolpur in Birbhum district on Tuesday.

Those arrested included a studio owner Rohitaswa Ghosh and Sumanta Pal, an official of Visva-Bharati university's department of music. Pal was interrogated till late last night by the CBI officials. A senior officer at Bolpur police station said they got some clues but would not divulge them. The involvement of more Visva-Bharati officials in the racket was not ruled out by the police.

The CBI team which has arrived here will conduct a probe to examine possible links between the racket and the theft in 2004 of Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel medallion from Rabindra Bhavan museum at Visva-Bharati. The police also recovered some valuable paintings from the Kolkata residence of the studio owner during a night-long raid on Wednesday.