Saradha scam accused Kunal Ghosh attempts suicide in jail

Suspended Trinamool Congress Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh attempted suicide inside his prison cell today, days after he warned that he will end his life if the Central Bureau of Investigation does not take proper action against ''those involved'' in the Saradha fund scam.

Ghosh is lodged in the Presidency Jail in Kolkata. He had threatened to commit suicide when he was produced in court three days ago. The former Rajya Sabha member is behind bars since November 2013 as one of the main accused in the scam.

Reports said Ghosh took an overdose of sleeping pills early in the morning, after the discovery of which he was rushed to the SSKM hospital.

West Bengal prisons minister H A Safi told a news agency, ''Kunal Ghosh has access to 2-3 pills as his regular prescription. He said he took the pills at 2:30am. At 2:33am he went walking to SSKM (Hospital), not on a stretcher.''

Ghosh reportedly told the doctors that he had consumed over 50 sleeping pills. He has been admitted to the Critical Care Unit of SSKM Hospital. His condition is said to be stable, and further details are awaited.

Ghosh's suicide attempt raises several questions, the simplest of these being how he obtained such a large quantity of sleeping pills in prison. A more difficult one is about the CBI's methods of investigation, which generally seem to comprise slinging mud all around in the hope that some of it will stick.

Earlier, Ghosh had said in court, ''The investigation is being influenced. It is not acceptable that I rot in jail while those involved roam freely. I am giving three days' time; if action is not taken I will commit suicide.''

A journalist by profession, Ghosh was the former CEO of Saradha Group firm Bengal Media Ltd. He had during earlier court hearings accused some top Trinamool Congress leaders of having benefited from the scam, and claimed that the CBI had not acted on the files of Bengal Media that were shown to him or against those he had named.

Ghosh had also put the Kolkata Police commissioner in the dock and alleged that he had stood by Saradha Group CEO and main accused Sudipta Sen.

''Kolkata Police Commissioner stood by him (Sen) and certified him to be a good man. Why is action not being taken against him? Is it because he is an IPS officer?''

''I have been framed as I took money in cheques but nothing happened to those who took in cash,'' he claimed. ''You see to it that they don't go scot free,'' he submitted.

Ghosh has been named by the CBI in its first chargesheet in the multi-crore scam along with Saradha chief Sen and his close aide Debjani Mukherjee.