ED wants to question TMC’s Anubrata Mondal, bodyguard in cattle smuggling case

An ED official said the agency has requested that it should be first given custody of Sehgal Hossain so that he can be questioned in Delhi.

KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) wants to question Trinamool Congress (TMC) Birbhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 11 in the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam, officials aware of the development said.

Birbhum: CBI officers during their investigation at the additional district sub-registrar's office to inquire about properties registered in the name of arrested TMC leader Anubrata Mondal and his relatives as part of its probe into an alleged cattle smuggling scam in Birbhum district. (PTI File Photo)

The ED submitted the request before a special court in Delhi earlier this week, saying it wants to question Mondal and his former bodyguard Sehgal Hossain, a West Bengal police constable who was arrested by CBI on June 10. Both are in judicial custody.

An ED official, who did not want to be named, said the agency has requested that it should be first given custody of Hossain so that he can be questioned in Delhi.

CBI and ED are conducting parallel probes into several cases in Bengal, including the coal and cattle smuggling cases.

On August 8, CBI filed its third charge-sheet, accusing Hossainof accepting money from several people on Mondal’s behalf. The 41-page charge-sheet alleged that 59 properties and businesses, including a petrol pump, stone crushing units, brick kilns and apartments are registered in the names of members of Hossain’s family.

CBI also gave the court records of phone calls that other prime suspects, including Muhammad Enamul Haque, made to Hossain’s mobile phones and claimed that it was Mondal who carried out the conversations.

Mondal has claimed that he hasn’t spoken to anyone using Hossain’s phone or have any information about Hossain’s properties.

While praying for extension of Mondal’s remand on Wednesday, CBI told a Bengal court that several properties and businesses are linked to him and members of his family.

The cattle smuggling case was registered by CBI in 2018 after JD Mathew, who served as BSF commandant in Bengal, was booked. It is alleged that cattle shown as seized by BSF at the Indo-Bangladesh border were undervalued and auctioned with the help of some customs department officers so that cow traders could buy them back at very low price and legally sell them again to their counterparts in Bangladesh.

Another BSF officer, Satish Kumar, who was a commandant in BSF’s South Bengal Frontier in 2016 and 2017, was arrested in 2020.

Three Bengal-based cow traders, Muhammad Enamul Haque, Anarul Sheikh and Muhammad Gulam Mustafa, are the other prime suspects. Haque was arrested by CBI from Delhi in November, 2020 and released on bail last year. The ED arrested him in February this year.