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CBI grills TMC MP Dev for 5 hours in Bengal cattle smuggling case
CBI also summoned the TMC’s Birbhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal, a close aide of chief minister Mamata Banerjee who was recently made a national steering committee member of the party, for questioning in the same case.
KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday questioned Bengali movie star and Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha member Deepak Adhikari, who is popularly known as Dev, for 5 hours in Kolkata in a cattle smuggling case, officials aware of the development said.
The case was registered in 2018, months after a Border Security Force (BSF) commandant, J D Mathew, who had served in Bengal, was booked in Kerala. The probe subsequently revealed a nexus between government officers, politicians and cow traders.
Adhikari, who represents the Ghatal constituency, was summoned to the CBI office at Nizam Palace in south Kolkata. CBI officials, who did not want to be identified, said they received information that Adhikari knows Muhammad Enamul Haque, one of the principal accused in the case, and received either money or expensive gifts from the latter.
“I told the CBI officers that I neither know Haque nor did I receive anything from him. The CBI wanted to know a lot of things from me. I cannot discuss those. I have not been asked to appear again,” Adhikari told media persons while leaving the CBI office.
Adhikari has won twice from Ghatal, which is spread across East and West Midnapore districts. He played a leading role in campaigning for TMC candidates in the assembly polls last year.
CBI on Monday summoned the TMC’s Birbhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal, a close aide of chief minister Mamata Banerjee who was recently made a national steering committee member of the party, for questioning in the same case. Mondal, however, did not visit the CBI office saying he was unwell.
CBI is probing the alleged involvement of several Border Security Force (BSF), customs and police officers, smugglers and politicians in the probe into cattle smuggling along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border. The probe started in 2018.
Three Bengal-based cattle traders, Muhammad Enamul Haque, Anarul Sheikh and Muhammad Gulam Mustafa, are the prime suspects. Haque was arrested in Delhi in November, 2020. At least a dozen Bengal police officers have been interrogated so far.
While TMC leaders did not make any statement on Adhikari being questioned by CBI on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Sukanta Majumdar said the popular actor is paying the price for being in the company of corrupt people.
“Good company can send a man to heaven but bad company can cause disaster. Dev should cooperate with CBI and reveal whatever he knows,” Majumdar said.
TMC spokesperson Biswajit Deb, a former advocate general of Nagaland, told the media last week that Adhikari is a victim of political conspiracy. He alleged that the BJP is using CBI and other Central probe agencies against TMC leaders to exert pressure.
According to the first information report filed by the CBI, cattle seized by the BSF were undervalued and auctioned with the help of some customs officers so that traders could buy these at a very low price and legally sell them again in Bangladesh. Part of the sale proceeds allegedly went to some TMC leaders and government officers.
CBI suspects that a large quantity of money was sent to other states through hawala operators. In September 2020, CBI conducted raids in 15 cities and towns in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and properties belonging to Satish Kumar, who used to be a commandant in the South Bengal Frontier of the BSF in 2016 and 2017, were sealed. Kumar was arrested two months later.
