Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha member, Ahmad Hassan alias Imran on Friday, over his alleged financial dealings with the Saradha group, accused of laundering millions of rupees from investors.

The agencies question him about the financial dealings of Saradha-owned Bengali daily, Kalam, where Imran is an editor.

They also continued to question East Bengal football club official Debabrata Sarkar, who was arrested last Tuesday and has been identified by Sudipto Sen — the prime accused — as the one who took Rs400 million (Dh24 million) from him to bribe officials at the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

“Our prime objective is to identify the corrupt officials. We have come to understand that two former footballers were also involved,” an investigating officer said.

The sleuths also identified properties worth millions of rupees that Sarkar purchased in Goa over the last three years.

“We are raiding various places all over India where apparently they have bought property in some other name and have stacked away the money they had received from the investors. Also few trading companies have been identified who were using Sen’s money,” the officer added.

The agency is keen to verify more names of politicians who allegedly benefitted from the chit fund scam.

Meanwhile, in an impromptu statement, Sen told the local courts on Thursday evening that he preferred to stay in CBI custody rather than the state police, adding that properties worth millions are being looted all over the state and the CBI must pay attention to this.

However, this statement has raised questions over the impartiality of the state police as many believe that the police were putting pressure on Sen to save politicians of the ruling party.

“He had repeatedly questioned the impartiality of the state police. From the beginning they [the police] were acting in way to protect the TMC leaders. They [TMC] were never keen for a CBI enquiry. It was only under instruction from the Supreme Court that the state government relented. Even then the police had refused help to the agencies,” said the leader of the opposition Surya Kanta Mishra.