Bolt from blue: Malda DM Jayaraman laughs at Kumar remark

Malda, Dec. 2: Malda district magistrate G. Kiran Kumar today said his arrest on Saturday in connection with the alleged funds misuse in the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority was like a “bolt from the blue”.

“I had never imagined I would be arrested. I had gone to Siliguri to co-operate with the police. It was around 3.30pm on Saturday that Siliguri police commissioner K. Jayaraman suddenly told me that I was being arrested. Jayaraman said he had no other option but to arrest me because outside the office, the DYFI was demonstrating,” Kumar said.

“At first, I thought the police commissioner was joking. However, around 4pm, I was told that I was being taken to court to be produced as I was being arrested. It was like a bolt from the blue,” Kumar said. “I cannot fathom why I was arrested. I was not trying to run.”

In Calcutta, when Jayaraman, now on compulsory waiting, was asked about the district magistrate’s comment on his arrest, he laughed and refused to say anything.

The officer was at Nabanna to meet senior government officials.

District magistrate Kumar, who was granted bail by the assistant chief judicial magistrate’s court in Siliguri on Sunday, arrived at his residence in Malda around 3.30am last night. He left in a car at 5am for Calcutta with his wife and daughter.

He has proceeded on a 15-day leave and is scheduled to go to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, from where he hails. Additional district magistrate Nilkamal Biswas has taken charge as the acting district magistrate.

Kumar said he had gone to the Siliguri police commissionerate on Saturday to “cooperate with the investigations” in the SJDA case.

The district magistrate said the past two days had been a harrowing experience for him.

“I would be unable to talk at length. The past two days’ experience has made me ill. I had applied for leave and it has been sanctioned for 15 days. I am going home to Hyderabad. I have not gone home for the past six months,” Kumar said.

Kumar was the SJDA chief executive officer from 2011 to 2013 when funds to the tune of Rs 80 crore were allegedly misused.

The court on Saturday remanded him in four days’ police custody against the police’s plea for a 10-day remand. But on Sunday, the police said he was not required in custody.

The 38-year-old IAS officer said reports that he had misbehaved with investigators were incorrect.

“There have been some media reports that I had challenged the police commissioner. That is totally untrue. I had asked the police officers in a light-hearted manner if my arrest was absolutely necessary. I had asked the police commissioner was it necessary to arrest me just because the DYFI was baying for my blood outside? Was I not co-operating?” Kumar said.

He added: “I had answered every call and visited Siliguri. I had even co-operated with the policemen who came to question me in Malda. The police commissioner did not answer these questions and dispatched me to court in a police vehicle.”