Cattle smuggling case: Anubrata Mondal grilled by CBI, taken to hospital over ‘chest pain’

The 61-year-old was taken to state-run SSKM Hospital from where he was discharged later. The CBI officials said Mondal complained of chest pain and asked the investigators to allow him to visit a doctor. “He was allowed to go while interrogation was on. He will be called for questioning again,” an official said.

The doctors at the hospital advised him some tests besides prescribing medicines, it was learnt.

Earlier, the TMC strongman, a close associate of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, arrived at the central agency’s Nizam Palace office in the city at 9:10am after having evaded several summons in the ongoing probe.

Mondal was first asked to wait at the agency’s anti-corruption branch before he was called for interrogation on the 14th floor.

The agency questioned Mondal on the basis of call records and documents, it is learnt. He was asked if he knew the accused like Satish Kumar, Vinay Mishra and others, officials said.

Mondal has been a missing link for the CBI and he faced the agency for the first time in the case. Earlier, he had sought time from the CBI till May 21.

The CBI had summoned Mondal after the Calcutta High Court upheld a single-judge bench order last month refusing him any protection from arrest in the case.

On April 6, Mondal got admitted to the SSKM Hospital in a dramatic manner and was discharged on April 22. Thereafter, the CBI sent him summons twice — one in connection with cattle smuggling case and the other regarding the post-poll violence probe.

In an FIR filed in September 2020, the CBI had arraigned four persons – BSF Commandant Satish Kumar, Muhammad Enamul Haque, Anarul Sheikh and Gulam Mustafa — in the illegal cattle trade. Mondal’s name had cropped up during the investigation in the case. The CBI FIR says that from December 2015 to April 2017, nearly 20,000 cattle heads were seized by the BSF when they were being transported across the border.