Chit fund scam: Firm’s investment head held

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 10

The state Crime Branch today arrested one of the five main accused in the Rs10,000-crore Crown Co-operative chit fund scam. The accused, Inderjit Singh Sarao, owns a shopping plaza in Khanna town. He was reportedly a tailor in Khanna before he joined the company and made it rich in a few years.

He was named in the October 19 FIR registered against the Crown Fund managers on the basis of about 475 complaints of the investors. Inspector Kulwant Singh, SHO, Crime Branch police station, Mohali, said Sarao was allegedly the investment head for Bathinda, Mohali and several other districts of Malwa.

The investigation had picked up pace in January after many investors showed black flags to Akali leaders during campaigning for the Assembly elections. A Special Investigation Team headed by DIG Jaskaran Singh has been gathering evidence and conducting raids to nab the accused.

The Tribune had carried a three-part series on the scam in December last year. On January 25, the police had arrested Harjit Singh, said to be number six in the hierarchy of the company management. He is also an employee of the PSPCL. Most of the investors in his group were employees of the PSPCL and other government departments.

The victims have accused Sarao of duping investors of hundreds of crores of rupees. Maninder Singh and Jai Kumar, president and general secretary of the Crown Chit Fund Sangharsh Committee, said, “Some of us lost our land as well as houses.”

The police have confiscated a laptop of the accused from his house, besides several documents pertaining to his business investments.