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TMC slammed after Bengal job scam suspect mentions working for Abhishek Banerjee
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state leadership saw Bhadra’s arrest as a significant development although three TMC legislators, including former education minister Partha Chatterjee, are already in judicial custody
Opposition parties targeted the ruling-Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday, hours after Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a prime suspect in the West Bengal school recruitment scam.
Bhadra was arrested late on Tuesday night after an 11-hour interrogation and was produced before Kolkata’s Bankshall court, which rejected his bail petition on Wednesday and remanded him in ED’s custody till June 14.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state leadership saw Bhadra’s arrest as a significant development although three TMC legislators, including former education minister Partha Chatterjee, are already in judicial custody.
“This arrest will expose the main beneficiaries of the scam,” Sukanta Majumdar, Bengal BJP president, said.
The Congress alleged that crores of money collected from bribe givers were being sent to foreign countries by the TMC.
Also Read: ED arrests Bengal job scam suspect who claimed to be Abhishek Banerjee’s employee
“We have received information that TMC’s top leaders are trying to convert a huge amount of money from various scams into American dollars and siphon it to foreign countries,” state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said at a press conference on Friday.
Jay Prakash Majumdar, TMC state vice-president, said: “Bhadra is not a member of the TMC. Also, it is not clear what charges he faces.”
Bhadra, who was earlier questioned by both the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), told the media on March 23 that he works for Abhishek Banerjee.
“Abhishek Banerjee is my boss. I work for his company. Since Banerjee cannot be touched by anyone, the agencies are targeting other people. It won’t help,” Bhadra said on March 23.
Banerjee, who is touring the districts as part of the TMC’s Nabo Jowar (new tide) programme, did not comment on Bhadra’s arrest.
On May 20, the ED raided 16 locations in and around Kolkata, including Bhadra’s home, and seized documents relating to several properties and companies. His mobile phones were also seized.
The 15-hour ED raid was conducted when the CBI questioned Banerjee for almost 10 hours in connection with the recruitment scam.
According to senior advocate Phiroze Edulji who represented the federal agency, the court was told that Bhadra was in regular contact with some of the prime suspects in the bribe-for-job scam in the state education department and he facilitated illegal recruitments.
Also Read: SC to hear Abhishek Banerjee’s plea against go-ahead for probe against him
He also admitted before the media that the CBI had grilled him in the coal smuggling case. Banerjee and his wife Rujira have also been questioned by the ED in the coal scam.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will on Friday hear Banerjee’s petition challenging the Calcutta high court’s order permitting the CBI and ED to proceed with the inquiry against him in connection with an alleged scam in the recruitment of teachers in West Bengal.
The CBI on Saturday questioned Banerjee for over nine hours two days after a single judge bench of the high court gave the go-ahead to the central agencies to interrogate Banerjee after his name was mentioned by Kuntal Ghosh, another prime suspect and a former TMC state general secretary.
