HC asks cops to complete probe in Manna Dey case

The Calcutta High Court ordered the city police on Monday to complete a probe into the case of money missing from one of legendary playback singer Manna De’s accounts in a nationalised bank at Kolkata.

Hearing a case filed by De’s daughter Sumita against his nephew Tarrit, the court also asked the police to file a case against the latter.

The matter of the missing money was reportedly first noticed in July, when the singer was in hospital and his daughter was looking for money to pay his medical hospital, which had ran to lakhs. While looking through several bank accounts, she came across one in Kolkata at the branch of a nationalised bank, close to the legend’s ancestral house in north Kolkata.

Sumita, however, noted that around Rs 30 lakh was missing, along with some ornaments of her mother Sulochana and a number of expensive watches, De had collected during his tours abroad. De held the account jointly with Tarrit for ease of operation as he spent most of his time Bangalore due to his ailing health, where he lived with his wife, who passed away couple of years ago. When Sumita confronted Tarrit, he dragged his feet over the matter and claimed to be unwell even to take calls from her.

In a letter to the Kolkata Police in July, Sumita wrote from Bangalore that since her father’s advanced age kept him from travelling, Tarrit was the one who handled the account.

“He took the opportunity of my father’s absence to siphon off all the money and my mother’s jewellery from the account,” she alleged, further accusing contents of the account and an assigned locker was shifted to another branch of the same bank close by, where Tarrit and his wife Arpita hold accounts.