Journalist Mathew Samuel appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers in the agency’s Kolkata office on Wednesday in connection with the Narada investigations. He has been asked to provide the password of his iPhone, but Samuel has so far been unwilling to divulge it, saying that it is “personal”, and something he would not like to share with the investigators.
The Narada videos were recorded by Samuel, and in it several individuals – including Mukul Roy and Sovon Chatterjee who are now with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – and Trinamool Congress’ Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Sougata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Banerjee, IPS officer SMH Mirza and others, were seen purportedly discussing receiving cash from a journalist who posed as a person with business interests in Bengal. The videos were shown on Narada TV and have come to be known as the Narada scandal. These were shown on television in 2016, prior to the Assembly elections in Bengal.
Last month, IPS officer SMH Mirza was arrested by the CBI, and it was the first arrest in connection with the probe.
Samuel has been called again on October 24. CBI officers have been questioning him to find out answers to some apparent discrepancies between statements given by him and Mirza.
