Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal, who was in judicial custody following his arrest in August in a multi-crore cattle smuggling case, was on Tuesday sent to police custody in an attempt to murder case registered against him by his own party worker.
On Monday, a Delhi court issued a warrant to produce Mondal on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case related to the cattle smuggling case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
With the Dubrajpur court remanding Mondal — the TMC’s Birbhum district president and a close aide of chief minister Mamata Banerjee — to police custody till December 27, ED has to halt, for the time being, the process of bringing him to Delhi for interrogation.
Since the attempt to murder case against Mondal was only registered on Monday, opposition parties alleged it was an attempt to stop ED from taking the TMC leader out of Bengal.
The case was registered against Mondal at Birbhum’s Dubrajpur police station on Monday afternoon based on a complaint by TMC worker Shibthakur Mondal, who has alleged that the leader assaulted and tried to kill him in May last year.
“The police registered a first information report (FIR) under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (causing grievous hurt) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and took Mondal to Dubrajpur court after arresting him inside the (Asansol) jail,” a senior police officer said, requesting anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}“The police registered a first information report (FIR) under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (causing grievous hurt) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and took Mondal to Dubrajpur court after arresting him inside the (Asansol) jail,” a senior police officer said, requesting anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}The judge remanded Mondal to police custody for seven days following a prayer by the local police for 14-day custody for investigation into the case.
“Anubrata has a lot of information to hide. The TMC leadership knows if interrogated in Delhi, he may reveal things that will put the top rung in danger,” said BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya. “Hence, the complaint of murder attempt was quickly scripted to keep him in Bengal. It is a weak script that cannot save him from ED’s interrogation.”
Mondal’s lawyer Moloy Mukherjee, who is also TMC’s Birbhum unit vice-president, said a bail prayer was not moved since the development was sudden.
“We will take disciplinary action against Shibthakur Mondal for maligning our leader. He will be expelled from the TMC,” Mukherjee said. “We suspect that the BJP is behind this conspiracy.”
Mukherjee also claimed that the case has nothing to do with ED, adding that it will not affect the ED case against Mondal. “The production warrant is yet to reach Asansol jail,” he added.
Complainant TMC worker Shibthakur Mondal denied playing any role in saving Mondal.
“I gathered courage to lodge the police complaint because he is in jail. Nobody influenced me. I did not discuss my plans with anyone,” he told the local media in Birbhum when asked why he waited for over a year to file the complaint.
The TMC leader was arrested by CBI in the cattle smuggling case on August 11. The federal agency has claimed 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 while the remaining 144 registration papers bear the names of his relatives, aides and their kin. One of them is Mondal’s daughter Sukanya, CBI officials claimed.
The federal agency claimed that profits from cattle smuggling were used to buy these properties, an allegation which is being probed by ED.