KOLKATA: An Alipore special court on Saturday turned down the bail plea of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Pamela Goswami, arrested on drugs charges, and sent her and two others to police custody till February 25.
Before the hearing, when she was being escorted to the court lock-up, Goswami spotted the waiting reporters outside and shouted to them, “Ami chai CID tadanta hok... ebong BJP’r Rakesh Singh jeno arrest hoye (I want a CID probe and BJP leader Rakesh Singh should be arrested).” She claimed Singh was a senior BJP leader’s aide and that she “had enough evidence”. Singh “welcomed any probe” against him, but disassociated himself from Goswami, claiming he had not met her in the past one-and-a-half years. He even wondered whether “she was being tutored by police or not”. “This is an attempt to earn cheap publicity. I will still hold the police and TMC accountable. They want to drag me into this case. I am ready to face any investigating agency: Kolkata Police or CID. She is someone with whom I have no contact.”
Public prosecutor Suresh Prasad Singh said, “Police need to interrogate them as they were caught with cocaine worth lakhs.”
Goswami’s lawyer Subhodip Ray declined to comment on “something said outside the court” but told the court the police charges were “fabricated”. “The raids and the arrest were not carried out legally. Witnesses have changed. The recovery was reportedly made from the front seat, while she sat in the back. There is no video evidence. She was not a (drug) carrier,” he said. Police told the court they needed to question Goswami and her associates to gather evidence in the “drug racket”.
Cops said they had been probing the drug links of Goswami and arrested Prabir Kumar Dey since April 9, 2020, when “someone close” to Goswami’s family tipped them off. But Goswami’s mother, Madhuchhanda, said she knew nothing about the allegations. “My daughter is very good. I know her very well, she is my daughter. We are a middle-class family,” she said, denying any knowledge of Pamela’s purported drug links. “She never took cocaine,” she claimed.
Trinamool was quick to respond. “Goswami blaming cops or TMC would have been natural. But she blamed BJP leaders. People are watching it,” said party’s spokesperson Kunal Ghosh. “Earlier, we saw the involvement of several BJP leaders in child trafficking, and now, in drug racket,” minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said.