ED Raids 5 Places Including Minister’s House Over Bengal Recruitment Scam

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted fresh raids at five places across West Bengal, including the house of state minister Chandranath Sinha in Birbhum district on Friday, in connection with the alleged multi-crore school recruitment scam.

Raids were conducted simultaneously in at least five locations in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and Birbhum, according to a senior official.

Sinha, minister of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) and textiles, was not at home when the central agency officials reached his house.

Houses of a businessman and a tax consultant in Kolkata and North 24 Parganas were also searched.

In May 2022, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) initiated an investigation into a scam ordered by the Calcutta High Court wherein appointments of personnel in state-run schools were allegedly made for financial gains. Subsequently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched a concurrent investigation to trace the financial transactions involved.

Former judge of the Calcutta high court Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who ordered the probe by the central agencies into the scam, recently resigned from his post and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Three Trinamool Congress legislators, including former education minister Partha Chatterjee, have already been arrested by the federal agencies in connection with the alleged scam and are now in judicial custody.

Abhishek Banerjee, TMC MP and the party’s national general secretary, has also been questioned by the CBI and ED in connection with the same scam in 2023.

In October last year, Abhishek’s parents Amit Banerjee, who is also the younger sibling of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and Lata Banerjee skipped the agency’s summons citing health reasons. Rujira Banerjee, Abhishek’s wife, however, appeared before the investigators.