PremiumAccording to the arrest memo, Chatterjee was arrested at 1:55 am on Saturday, following which he called the party supremo Mamata Banerjee at least four times between 2:32 am and 9:35 am
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Arrested Trinmaool Congress senior leader Partha Chatterjee might have called his party supremo and West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee after he was arrested on Saturday late int he night. Several reports have suggested that the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise of West Bengal had called his boss several times to let her know about his arrest, al of which went unanswered.
Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday 23 July, after the agency sleuths raided over a dozen location on Friday and recovered cash worth ₹21 crore. The ED also arrested a close aid of Partha, actor Arpita Mukherjee.
According to the arrest memo of the federal agency, Chatterjee was arrested at 1:55 am on Saturday after being questioned since Friday morning. He called the party chief at least four times between 2:32 am and 9:35 am, reported Hindustan Times.
“He called her but she didn’t take his call. Another opportunity was given but again she didn’t take the call," says the arrest memo of the central agency.
The memo notifies that Chatterjee called his party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the first time at 2:32 am. The second call was made immediately after that at 2:33 am. He again called her after a gap of one hour at 3:37 am. The last call was made at about 9:35 am.
“I tried to call her (Mamata Banerjee). But I couldn’t reach her," Chatterjee had told the media while being taken away from his south Kolkata residence by ED officials on Saturday at about 10:30 am.
The day he was arrested, while getting in to the car, reporters had asked the arrested minister if the West Bengal Cm was informed of Ed taking him into custody, to which Chatterjee had confirmed that she did not take his call.
The arrest memo, signed by an officer of assistant director rank of the probe agency, also mentions that Chatterjee refused to receive the arrest memo.
Meanwhile, Kolkata mayor and TMC leader Firhad Hakim has refuted the claim, citing the fact that Partha Chatterjee's phone was with Ed and he possibly could not have made any calls. “I don’t know what the ED or Chatterjee has said. But how can he make calls? During such raids, the first thing they (officials of central agencies) do is that they seize mobile phones so that no calls can be made. I have faced it," said Firhad Hakim. The Kolkata mayor had been arrested in 2021 by the CBI in connection with the Narada sting operation case.
The ED told the Calcutta high court on Sunday that during the raid at Chatterjee’s house and during the interrogation which lasted for 27 hours, ‘sufficient evidence’ was found in support of his involvement in the teacher recruitment scam. ‘Ample evidence’ was also collected which suggests that Arpita Mukherjee was a close aide of Chatterjee.
The ED also informed that the TMC minister was ‘feigning his illness’ and was behaving like a ‘don’ after he was shifted to the state-run SSKM hospital. Following this the Calcutta HC ordered that the minister he taken in an air ambulance to AIIMS Bhubaneswar where specialist doctors would treat him.