Tainted CBI official remanded to police custody till January 2

Senior Central Bureau of Investigation official Partho Sarathi Bose, arrested by the agency in a graft case in Kolkata, has been remanded to police custody till January two by a special judge in New Delhi.

Sources in the agency said that Bose was produced before the Special Judge for CBI cases on Tuesday evening after being brought to the national capital from Kolkata.

Bose, a Deputy Superintendent of Police in the CBI's Kolkata branch, was arrested by the agency after being caught allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a truck driver on December 28.

During subsequent raids conducted by the officials of CBI's Anti-Corruption Bureau at the residence of Bose in Kolkata, the agency claimed to recover about Rs 14 lakh in cash and investments worth over Rs one crore.

Bose, who was with the agency's Special Crime Division was accused by Avtar Singh, a truck driver, of demanding a bribe of Rs 50,000 for not "falsely implicating him in a murder case of a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence official".

The CBI official's arrest has also become a political talking point for both Communist Party of India-Marxist and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, as he had earlier  investigated politically sensitive cases.

One of the most high-profile cases investigated by Bose in recent times was the killing of Tapasi Malik, a member of the protest spearheaded by Trinamool Congress against the acquisition of land for the now abandoned Tata Motors' Nano project at Singur. Her half burnt body was found on December 18, 2006.

The CBI officer had also investigated the Chhoto Angaria carnage in West Midnapore of January 4, 2001, in which a number of persons were burnt to death, allegedly by CPI-M supporters. The Trinamool Congress had claimed the victims were its supporters.

Another important case handled by Bose was the probe into the theft of Tagore's Nobel medal from Santiniketan in March 25, 2004.

Bose, at the time of his arrest was investigating the murder of T K Datta, a DRI official killed at Krishnapur in Guwahati on September 12, 2006, after he intercepted a huge quantity of drugs there.

Dreaded drug lord Pakhi Miyan was arrested in the case but he managed to flee from a hospital and is absconding.