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CBI to probe assets of TMC leader’s driver, cook in cattle smuggling case
TMC leader Anubrata Mondal’s cook could not explain the source of ₹15 lakh found in his account while his cook could not explain how he bought 52 cottahs of land
The West Bengal cattle smuggling case has prompted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the assets of the driver and cook of Anubrata Mondal, the prime accused and president of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s Birbhum district unit, officials of the federal agency said.
The CBI has frozen a bank account operated by the cook, Bijay Rajak, who worked at Mondal’s residence at Bolpur town in Birbhum. He could not explain the source of the sum of ₹15 lakh found in his account at the Siuri town branch of the Birbhum District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd that was raided by the CBI on January 5, the official said.
The driver, Toofan Miyan, is under scanner because he has not been able to explain how he bought 52 cottahs of land at Kankalitala near Bolpur, a CBI official said on condition of anonymity. One cottah is equal to 720 sq ft.
Both Rajak and Miyan have been interrogated several times at the CBI field office in Bolpur.
The CBI found that 231 ghost bank accounts were opened by using Aadhaar card details of unsuspecting villagers in Birbhum district to siphon proceeds from the cattle smuggling operation, which has been probed since 2018.
Money from the ghost accounts were transferred to various banks in Kolkata and other places over the last few years, the CBI informed the Asansol court in Bengal’s West Burdwan district on January 19.
Arrested by CBI on August 11, 2022, Mondal is now in judicial custody. He was named in the CBI’s fourth charge sheet filed at the Asansol court on October 7 last year.
Mondal’s former bodyguard, Sehgal Hossain, was arrested by the CBI on June 10, 2022 and named in the third charge sheet filed on August 8 the same year.
The CBI has so far traced a large number of bank accounts and properties belonging to Mondal, his daughter, Sukanya, and Hossain, a state police constable. Hossain is lodged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail as a suspect in a parallel probe being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The CBI claimed in its charge sheet against Mondal that he is suspected to be linked to 168 land and property deeds executed in or after 2014. At least 24 of these belong to Mondal, suspects the federal agency, while the remaining 144 registration papers bear the names of his relatives, aides and their kin. Hossain is one of them.
It is suspected that proceeds from cattle smuggling were used to buy these properties.
Sukanya Mondol, 32, is a primary school teacher appointed by the state government in 2011, when the TMC first came to power. The CBI has found that she is the director of two companies linked to her father.
A Birbhum district education department official said Sukanya Mondal has not been receiving salary since January because she has not reported to duty after her father’s arrest in August last year.
