New Delhi, July 31: The three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand, who were caught with a huge amount of cash in their vehicle on Saturday, were remanded to CID's custody for 10 days by a Howrah court on Sunday.
An amount of Rs 49 lakh in cash was recovered from their SUV, which was intercepted on National Highway-16 at Ranihati in the Panchla police station area on Saturday evening, an official told PTI.
MLAs Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Bixal Kongari, and two other persons, including their driver, were arrested after they failed to answer the police as to why they were carrying such a huge amount of cash, he added.
The five persons, including the MLAs, have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including that for criminal conspiracy, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, he said. The arrests were made after the MLAs were questioned throughout the night, the officer said.
A special team of CID- West Bengal officials on Sunday interrogated them throughout the day over the huge cash found in their vehicle. After the court order, the CID team took the three MLAs, the driver and the fifth person travelling in the car to the CID headquarters at Bhabani Bhavan in Kolkata, IANS reported.
They will be interrogated again tonight, a CID official told the news agency.
The Congress, which is a part of the JMM-led government in Jharkhand along with Lalu Prasad's RJD, has already suspended the three MLAs.
Jharkhand has become a "den of corruption", the BJP alleged on Sunday said.
The entire Congress leadership, be it a big leader or small, is involved in corruption in the state, BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam alleged. He accused the party of trying to shift the blame to it for the alleged corruption of its MLAs.
Citing a recent probe by the Enforcement Directorate, Islam said officials linked to Chief Minister Hemant Soren have been nabbed for suspected corruption and now the entire country has seen three Congress MLAs travelling to Bengal with a large amount of cash. "The Congress has been exposed again. Corruption has reached huge proportions in Jharkhand. The state government has been frequently involved in graft and the state has become a den of corruption," he alleged.