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ED arrests Bengal job scam suspect who claimed to be Abhishek Banerjee’s employee
In May 2022, Calcutta high court ordered the CBI to probe the appointments of non-teaching and teaching staff between 2014 and 2021
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) late on Tuesday arrested a suspect after 11-hour interrogation in Kolkata in connection with an alleged school recruitment scam in West Bengal.
An ED official said Sujaykrishna Bhadra, who in March claimed to be working for ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee, is suspected to be linked with transactions of three companies allegedly involved in the laundering of money related to the alleged scam.
On March 23, Bhadra called Banerjee his boss. He said since Banerjee cannot be touched, the agencies were targeting other people. Bhadra then said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned him in a coal smuggling case too.
Bhadra was due to be produced before a court on Wednesday. “He was arrested after he made conflicting statements in an apparent attempt to mislead the interrogators,” a second ED official said.
On May 20, ED raided 16 locations including Bhadra’s home in Kolkata, and said it seized documents of properties of three companies through which unaccounted money is suspected to have been siphoned off.
The CBI this month questioned Banerjee for almost 10 hours in connection with the alleged recruitment scam. The Calcutta high court ordered the questioning after Kuntal Ghosh, another suspect and a former TMC leader, mentioned his name. Ghosh was arrested on January 21 and expelled from TMC later.
In May 2022, the high court ordered the CBI to probe the appointments of non-teaching and teaching staff between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes to get jobs after failing the selection tests.
The suspected involvement of TMC leaders surfaced when the ED arrested education minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee in July 2022. In its first charge sheet filed in September last year, ED said it traced cash, jewellery, and immovable property worth ₹103.10 crore linked to the two.
Chatterjee was dropped from the government and suspended from TMC.
After Bhadra’s arrest, opposition Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari tweeted: “Nobody will be spared. The time is ticking.”
