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ED raids more premises linked to Partha’s aide Arpita Mukherjee
Officials conducted searches at Arpita Mukherjee’s nail art parlours located in Baranagar in north Kolkata, Patuli township in the southern outskirts of the city and Lake View Road in south Kolkata.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday raided three nail art parlours and a three-storied house here allegedly linked to Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, as part of its probe into the school service commission (SSC) recruitment scam, officials said.
Both Mukherjee and Chatterjee were arrested last month and are in ED custody.
The officials conducted searches at Mukherjee’s nail art parlours located in Baranagar in north Kolkata, Patuli township in the southern outskirts of the city and Lake View Road in south Kolkata. Several files related to Mukherjee’s businesses were seized from these premises, the officials said.
An ED team also raided a three-storey house at Madurdaha which was reportedly rented out to a private hospital for its staff.
The building’s caretaker, Parmeshwar Das, said Mukherjee had visited the property six months ago. He also said he was paid ₹700 a month, ED officials said.
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Accompanied by central paramilitary force personnel, officials initially planned to break into an apartment at Fort Oasis, a high-rise residential complex at Panditiya Road in south Kolkata to conduct a search. They claimed a businessman had “gifted” the apartment to Chatterjee but was being used by Mukherjee.
However, officials shelved their plans, and sealed the apartment from outside, after documents found at the resident committee’s office showed that it was registered in the name of one Smitha Jhunjhunwala whose identity could not be immediately established.
Security guards at the building told reporters that the apartment belongs to a businessman named Om Jhunjhunwala. No one has entered the flat in 10 years, they said.
ED officials also wanted to raid a second apartment in the same building where the nail art parlour in Patuli is located. It, however, found that the apartment belongs to TMC leader Sanjib Das who was subsequently questioned.
Chatterjee was arrested on July 23 after 27 hours of interrogation in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in government schools, in which the ED has thus far recovered cash worth ₹50 crore. He was the state education minister from 2014 to 2021 and the alleged irregularities took place in 2018.
Mukherjee, from whose flat ₹21.9 crore in cash was seized during a raid on July 23, was also arrested as a prime suspect.
While Chatterjee earlier said that he has no source of income, Mukherjee on Tuesday said she was not aware of the cash recovered during the course of the probe from her apartments at a south Kolkata condominium and a high-rise at Belgharia in north Kolkata.
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“The money was kept in my flats without my knowledge. I was kept in the dark,” she said as she arrived at ESI Hospital in Joka for a routine medical checkup.
With their remand in ED custody scheduled to end on Wednesday, the two accused were questioned for long hours on Monday night but none of them revealed any information about the source of the ₹50 crore in cash, foreign currency and jewellery and gold biscuits weighing a few kilos that were seized from other properties of Mukherjee since July 23, according to ED officials.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee last week stripped Chatterjee of his portfolios (commerce, industry and public enterprises, information technology and parliamentary affairs) and his positions (state secretary general and national vice-president) in the party.
The ruling Trinamool Congress has also claimed that it has no links with Mukherjee and the seized cash.
