Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate seized Rs 20 crore cash and 20 cellphones from the apartment of Arpita Mukherjeewhom it described as a “close aide” of Partha Chatterjeethe former Bengal education and current commerce and industries minister.
The raid on Mukherjee’s apartment was part of the agency’s coordinated raids on 14 addresses across the state on Friday — for over 16 hours — in connection with its ongoing probe into alleged irregularities in school-staff recruitment. The agency, in a press release confirming the cash and other seizures from the Diamond City South flat of Mukherjee, said the amount “is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the said SSC scam.”
The ED team, after recovering the currency stashed in some bags from the apartment in the evening, took help from bank officials to determine the exact amount. The team also claimed to have found “incriminating documents, records, details of dubious companies, electronic devices, foreign currency and gold”, which, they claimed, could throw light on the alleged money-laundering angle in the overall school appointment scam.
The apartment of Mukherjee, who is believed to have acted in some Odiya and Bengali movies, was not initially on the raid list, according to ED sources. The investigators took the decision only later, after the team got hold of some documents bearing her name and addresses. A team of officers questioned her soon after, citing her “close association” with Chatterjee. Investigators also pointed out that Mukherjee was the “brand ambassador” of the Udayan Sangha Durgotsav at Naktala, which Chatterjee patronises.
Chatterjee himself was questioned at his Naktala residence for over 16 hours. The questions included ones that tried to ascertain whether he had any clue about the provenance of the money recovered from Mukherjee’s home. After about seven hours of questioning — and prior to the cash recovery — Chatterjee felt unwell. His house physician and three doctors from SSKM Hospital were brought to the minister’s residence by a Bhowanipore police officer for a “routine checkup” on the request of ED officials. Chatterjee was allowed some time to rest while the doctors waited on the ground floor.
Late in the evening, at 10.38pm, another ED officer entered Chatterjee’s home, minutes after the former education minister’s lawyers reached the spot. At the time of going to press, interrogation was still on.
In the other raids, a team of around 80-90 ED officials, accompanied by CRPF personnel from the Kharagpur camp, fanned out across the state from early in the morning. One of the teams reached minister of state Paresh Adhikary’s Mekhliganj home, even as others went to the homes of officials whose names had cropped up during the investigation of the alleged “cash-for-jobs” scam.
A team of five IT officials went to the home of Chatterjee’s relative, Krishna Prasad Adhikary, at Khirinda village in West Midnapore’s Pingla. According to sources, Chatterjee’s son-in-law, Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, had taken three and a half acres of land on lease from his maternal uncle, Krishna Prasad Adhikary, and built the BCM International School there. Bhattacharya happens to be the founder and trustee of the school. IT officials wanted to know from Adhikary how much money he got from Bhattacharya and where the money for building the school came from. Later, in the afternoon, an ED team went to the New Barrackpore home of Chatterjee’s personal secretary, Sukanta Acharjee. Acharjee and an officer on special duty, PK Bandyopadhyay, were members of the advisory panel set up to oversee the school appointments. A Calcutta High Court committee had ruled the committee “not valid under the law”.
ED teams also went to the residences of primary school teacher Chandan Mandal’s home at Mama Bagina village in Bagda, North 24 Parganas. The team claimed it had got hold of some “incriminating documents” there. A team also raided the home of former chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya and former West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Ganguly. The residences of former education officials AK Sarkar, Santi Prasad Sinha, Samarjit Acharya, Soumitra Sarkar and Ratna Chakraborty Bagchi — whose names had come up during investigation — were also raided.
The ED had lodged two FIRs over alleged money-laundering in the alleged “cash-for-jobs” scam on June 29, even as the CBI continued with its probe on the directives of the Calcutta High Court.
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