Shillong, Nov 27: Leader of Opposition, Mukul Sangma on Friday made startling allegations that Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and Power Minister James Sangma had destroyed evidence, tampered with and derailed the police investigation into the sensational case of a cybercrime registered in 2017 on duping of American citizens by posing as US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials.
It may be mentioned that the IRS impersonation scams involved scammers targeting American taxpayers by pretending to be Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operated by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and of freezing the assets if thousands of dollars were not paid immediately.
When the scam was unearthed, the investigations revealed that the scammers were operating from the SS Netcom premises in Meghalaya and from other states as well.
A six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by Superintendent of Police, Shillong City, Vivek Syiem was formed to conduct a thorough probe into the scam. They were coordinating with Assam, Gujarat and Maharashtra Police, besides the Enforcement Directorate, the former chief minister said.
“Now this particular case relates to a scam that occurred in the premises of SS Netcom whose owners include Conrad Sangma, James Sangma and their family members and they have tampered with the whole process of investigation. They have tried to force the police to submit an incomplete charge-sheet in the court without even completing the investigations and without verifying the data’s and information in the seized laptops and gadgets and all the transcripts,” Mukul informed.
Mukul alleged that SS Netcom had recruited some job seekers for IT enabled services from Shillong and other states of the North East. These recruited youth were trained in Ahmedabad, by a fake company — Irfan Faizal and Amit (IFA) which are nick names. The IFA was rented out premises by SS Netcom.
“Before renting out a house for domestic or commercial purposes an owner has the onus to verify the antecedents of the proposed tenants. But in this case the Sangma brothers not only rented out the premises to IFA but also got them to train these youths recruited by SS Netcom and that’s how the matter blew up,” Mukul said adding that the whole issue revolved around training the youth to engage in criminal activities which is a dangerous precedence.
Stating that the youth were being trained to engage in an international network of criminal activities which in other words means training them to be criminals, Mukul said.
Armed with a letter from the Superintendent of Police written to the DIG Eastern Range and dated February 1, 2019, Mukul said it was self-explanatory. In the letter the SP had stated that the disposal of cases had suffered despite the supervision and guidance by gazetted officers. Besides, the sudden transfer and positing of inspector MM Khan and UBSI Pinto Das had created a fear psychosis among the officers of the district since they were handling the high profile case and had strong suspicions that the transfer could have been because of these reasons.
Mukul said that the letter also requested that the matter be taken up on a priority basis with the Police HQ for retaining Inspector MM Khan and UBSI Pinto Das in the district.
“I came to know recently that the Investigation officer concerned has been transferred and that is why I am alleging that they are tampering with the whole process of law,” Mukul said even as he questioned as to why this government had not called the meeting of the State Security Commission for such a long time even after the issue was raised many times in the State Assembly.
Reminding that case 120b Laitumkhrah PS case no 134/ 2017 was registered on Aug 28, 2017 before the elections under sec 120b 419, 420, 465, 201 IPC and 66d of IT Act for allegedly running a fake call centre in the premises of SS Netcom and that was during his tenure, the Leader of the Opposition said, “The case was registered during my time. I did not interfere because we believe in the Judiciary and its administration of justice and the law should be allowed to take its own course”.
“After the election, there has been change of government but irrespective of whichever government comes to power the process of law must not be disrupted but in this case there is a clear attempt to derail this entire process of investigating,” Mukul said.
The Leader of the Opposition has demanded that the state government should immediately convene a meeting of the State Security Commission and give answers for all the arbitrary transfer and posting of police officials in a deliberate attempt at derailing the whole process of investigation and also to destroy evidence.
“Even if any shred of evidence is destroyed they will be held responsible and should be proceeded with under the relevant sections of law, no matter who they are”.
“This case has international ramification and it transcends the borders of Meghalaya hence it cannot be dealt with only by the State Police but has to go beyond. India should not be used as a hub of criminal activities,” Mukul concluded.