What Ruptured the ‘Sweet’ Ties Between Mamata and a Woman Cop?

Bharati Ghosh is reportedly under the “protection” of political forces “inimical” to Mamata and the TMC.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her once close aide Bharati Ghosh.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A promotee female Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from West Bengal, who was once “very close” to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee but who recently fell out with the latter over more than just one issue, might be living “in or around” Delhi after a few criminal cases were lodged against her by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Trinamool Congress sources suspect that police officer Bharati Ghosh, who has caused “sufficient embarrassment” to the party leadership and the state government once she went into “hiding” fearing “vindictive action by the current dispensation” in Bengal, is under the “protection” and “shelter” of powerful political forces “inimical” to Banerjee and her party.

Ghosh, who resigned from police service sometime in December 2017, has from time to time released audio tapes – and sent to some select media houses in Kolkata – in an attempt to “corner” the TMC leadership.

The contents of these tapes have caused some discomfiture to the ruling establishment in Bengal. CID sources said that they are yet to locate a phone number that could be traced to Ghosh.

From Close Ties to Subsequent Embitterment

Political observers in Kolkata are dismayed by the sudden rupture in the once “sweet” relationship between Ghosh and her benefactor, Banerjee. But inquiries with knowledgeable sources in the state police and the TMC suggest that while the “respective ambitions” of the dramatis personae – Ghosh and Banerjee – at a time when the erstwhile CPM-led Left Front regime was fast losing ground in Bengal brought the two close, the “spoils of success,” ironically, caused the subsequent embitterment.

In 2010, after serving as an officer in the UN Peacekeeping Force in Kosovo for about seven-eight years, Ghosh returned to Bengal and joined as Additional Superintendent of Police, Jhargram, then in undivided Midnapore district. This was also the time when Maoists were on the rampage across Midnapore, declaring it to be a “red zone” in which their writ would run.

Following the ouster of the Left Front from power in 2011, one of the first administrative decisions that Banerjee took after assuming the mantle of chief minister was to bifurcate Midnapore, creating two separate districts – West Midnapore and East Midnapore. Ghosh was promoted to the rank of Superintendent of Police and in that capacity given charge of West Midnapore.

Sources in the state police’s Intelligence Branch disclosed that with the Maoists in “near control” of West Midnapore, their top leadership would often use parts of the forested territory bordering East Singbhum district in Jharkhand as hideouts and corridors for their untrammeled movement.

Top Maoist leader Mallojula Koteshwar Rao, aka ‘Kishenji,’ was among others who would often clandestinely visit West Midnapore where Chhatradhar Mahato, a “rising star” of the ultra-Left wing in the district, would confabulate with him.

Chhatradhar was centred around Lalgarh, and before the TMC assumed power, would maintain clandestine relations with the party’s top leadership when he led the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) which Banerjee had allied with before her bid for power.

But in November 2011, Kishenji was “entrapped” and killed in an encounter with the police. Sources said Ghosh was the “brain” behind the operation to eliminate Kishenji.

Subsequently, Chhatradhar, who was the main accused in several cases, including one in which he was implicated for planning to blast an IED near the convoy of the then CM Buddhadev Bhattacharya in Salboni, was arrested on 26 September 2009. He is now serving a life sentence.

What Happened After Kishenji Was Killed?

State intelligence sources said that once several Maoists has been accounted for, partly as a result of the TMC snapping all ties, clandestine or otherwise, with the PCAPA, Suchitra Mahato, the wife of Chhatradhar’s younger brother Shashadhar, “surrendered” to the police. In subsequent operations, the police are said to have recovered a “bulk” of Rs 2.5 crore, which sources said was to be used by Kishenji to procure a “sophisticated” communication equipment from China, the house of one of Suchitra’s relatives.

By this time, however, Suchitra had “surrendered” and is alleged to have provided information to the police on Kishenji’s whereabouts. A book store by the name ‘Lalmati’ and valued at about Rs 25 lakh, was “organised” for her in Kolkata’s College Street.

“A good portion” of the money, sources disclosed, was never accounted for legally. “The money was split as gathered spoils between a particular police officer of West Midnapore district and a senior TMC leader,” party as well as police sources revealed.

Ghosh ‘Wanted’ by CID

Meanwhile, Ghosh’s position had strengthened with political patronage from the ruling TMC. Married to real estate businessman Raju, who is originally from Andhra Pradesh but has been based in Kolkata for several years, Ghosh is alleged to have played a key role before even elections to Lok Sabha seats in West Midnapore got underway, becoming, in the words of a TMC leader the “eyes and ears” of Banerjee. She was removed as SP on the recommendation of the Election Commission but was reinstated once the polls were over.

However, as Ghosh’s stature grew, she began to make “enemies” among leaders of the TMC’s West Midnapore unit.

About two years ago, when Ghosh is said to have busted Kharagpur-based metal scrap mafia Rambabu Naidu’s “business running into crores,” local partymen complained to the leadership that the “raid” was the result of differences between Ghosh and Naidu.

TMC sources owing allegiance to Banerjee revealed that the breach between Ghosh and the CM took place in the wake of the 2017 by-election to the Sabang Assembly constituency when former MLA Manas Bhuiyan, who defected from the Congress to the TMC in 2016, was implicated in a murder case alleged at the behest of the police.

“It was at this point that Banerjee suspected that Ghosh was playing a double game,” a senior TMC leader said. Ghosh was subsequently transferred out of West Midnapore and sidelined, leading her to take voluntary retirement towards the end of 2017.

Said to belong to a “reasonably well-off family,” Ghosh and the CID are now playing a “cat-and-mouse game.” She is said to have in place a battery of lawyers, in the event of the CID catching up with her.

The CID’s cases against her, sources said, are “not quite air tight” as the sundry complainants from West Midnapore have levelled charges of the former police officer having accumulated “black money.”

On her part, sources suspect, Ghosh may have “incriminating evidence” against some Bengal political leaders which she may use when she finds the net closing in on her.

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