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Delhi court extends Anubrata Mondal’s ED remand in cattle smuggling case
The court was told that Mondal, president of the TMC unit in Bengal’s Birbhum district, said during interrogation that he cannot speak and understand Hindi or English. When asked to write his replies in Bengali, he said he was incapable of doing that, an ED official said on condition of anonymi.
Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court on Friday extended Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal’s Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) custody by 11 days, officials of the federal agency said.
Mondal, who was earlier arrested by the ED for his alleged role in the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam, was flown to Delhi by the federal agency on Tuesday.
The Delhi court, on whose order Mondal was flown from Bengal to the national capital on March 7, was told by ED’s lawyers on Friday that the accused did not cooperate with the interrogators in the last three days.
Mondal was asked about his suspected link to 168 land and property deeds that are under scanner by the probe agency.
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The court was told that Mondal, president of the TMC unit in Bengal’s Birbhum district, said during interrogation that he cannot speak and understand Hindi or English. When asked to write his replies in Bengali, he said he was incapable of doing that, an ED official said on condition of anonymity.
The ED also told the court that it wants to summon 11 other people, including Mondal’s daughter Sukanya, to Delhi to question the TMC leader in their presence.
The statements of these 11 people were earlier recorded by ED. Sukanya was summoned to Delhi twice last year.
Sukanya, a primary school teacher appointed by the state government in 2011, when the TMC first came to power, is the director of two companies, Neer Developer Pvt Ltd and ANM Agrochem Foods Pvt Ltd, the probe has revealed. She also owns a rice mill in Birbhum’s Bolpur town where the Mondals live.
On the orders of a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, authorities of the Asansol jail in West Burdwan district, where the Mondal was lodged, brought him to Kolkata. He was handed over to the federal agency after a three-hour-long check up by doctors of the ESI hospital. The ED took him to Delhi in the evening.
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The CBI arrested Mondal on August 11, 2022. He was named in the CBI’s fourth charge sheet filed at Bengal’s Asansol court on October 7. Mondal was remanded in judicial custody and kept at the Asansol correctional home till March 7.
CBI officials claim to have detected Mondal’s suspected link to 168 land and property deeds executed in or after 2014. At least two dozen of these properties belong to him, suspects the federal agency, while the remaining 144 registration papers bear the names of his relatives, aides and their kin.
The CBI suspects that profits from cattle smuggling were used to buy the properties. The ED is probing the allegations of money laundering.
Mondal’s former bodyguard, Sehgal Hossain, a state police constable, was arrested by CBI on June 10 last year and has been named as a prime accused in the agency’s third charge sheet filed on August 8.
Hossain is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail as a suspect in the ED’s parallel probe.
