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Eight IPS officers from Bengal summoned by ED for coal smuggling probe
ED officials said they have been summoned to Delhi in phases after August 15. Three of these officers were questioned in 2021 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is also probing the case
Eight Indian Police Service (IPS) officers posted in West Bengal have been summoned to Delhi by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in the coal smuggling case, officials aware of the development said.
The IPS officers are Gyanwant Singh, Koteswara Rao, S Selvamurugan, Shyam Singh, Rajiv Mishra, Sukesh Kumar Jain, Bhaskar Mukherjee and Tathagata Basu.
ED officials said they have been summoned to Delhi in phases after August 15. Three of these officers were questioned in 2021 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is also probing the case.
Gyanwant Singh in the additional director general of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which is carrying out a parallel probe into the coal smuggling.
Some state police officers are also suspects in this case.
On April 4, 2021, Ashok Mishra, the officer-in-charge of Bankura police station, was arrested by the ED from Delhi. He was also questioned by the CBI. Mishra was later released on bail.
The ED filed its first charge-sheet at a special court in Delhi in August last year against former Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing general secretary Vinay Mishra’s brother Vikas and Ashok Mishra, the police inspector.
None of the IPS officers who received the summons on Thursday could be contacted.
On July 19, the CBI filed its first charge-sheet in the coal smuggling case against 41 people, including Anup Majhi, alias Lala, the alleged kingpin of the operation, Vinay Mishra and eight officers of the Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) who were arrested from Kolkata between July 13 and 15. The officers include two former and a serving general manager.
The investigation is continuing, the CBI told the special court at Asansol in West Burdwan district where the charge-sheet was filed.
The probe started in November 2020.
It has been alleged that illegally mined coal, worth several thousand crores of rupees, has been sold in the black market in recent years by a racket operating in the western parts of Bengal where ECL runs several mines. Lawyers representing the CBI told the court last month that Majhi collaborated with Vinay Mishra to run the operation.
Mishra renounced his Indian citizenship in December 2020 and became a citizen of Vanuatu, a small island country in the south-west Pacific.
A Kolkata-based businessman, Mishra was a general secretary of the TMC’s youth wing that Abhishek Banerjee, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, headed till early June 2021 before being made the party’s national general secretary.
The ED filed a petition at the Patiala Court in Delhi in July, praying that Vinay Mishra be declared a fugitive economic offender.
Arrested by the ED, his brother, Vikash, is now in judicial custody and has been named in the CBI’s charge-sheet in the cattle smuggling case as well.
On the eve of the 2021 assembly polls, the CBI questioned Rujira Banerjee, the wife of Abhishek Banerjee, in the coal smuggling case. Rujira’s sister and the latter’s husband and father-in-law were also interrogated.
Rujira Banerjee was questioned again in June this year by the ED. Her husband, too, has faced ED officials twice since March. The interrogations have prompted the TMC to accuse the BJP-led government at the Centre of using probe agencies for political gain.
Leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, alleged that proceeds from the coal smuggling were transferred to overseas bank accounts held by Rujira Banerjee who was earlier a citizen of Thailand.
No TMC leader commented till Thursday afternoon on the summon notices sent to the eight IPS officers.
