Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned Bengal Law Minister Moloy Ghatak for nearly eight hours today at his Kolkata home in connection with the alleged coal smuggling scam. A team of the central probe agency raided the minister’s homes in Asansol and Kolkata this morning.
The team left the minister’s home this evening in three cars, accompanied by a group of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.
“This morning at around 8 am, the CBI reached my place. I had Rs 14,000 on me at the time of interrogation. They did not take the money, saying that it was insignificant. I have submitted everything to ED already. Being a law minister, I had a busy schedule today. But they conducted raids for over seven hours. They seized three of my mobile phones. It is just an attempt to malign me. I have been targeted politically. I am ready to face probe agencies in Delhi,” Moloy Ghatak said after his marathon interrogation.
Six properties of the law minister in Asansol and Kolkata and one belonging to his chartered accountant were raided by the CBI this morning.
Trinamool Congress workers took to the streets in Asansol protesting the raids.
Moloy Ghatak is a heavyweight Trinamool Congress leader elected from Asansol. As the CBI team left his Asansol residence, his wife, Sudeshna Ghatak, said that the agency officials behaved cordially, adding that she helped them in the investigation.
THE RAIDS
The raid was carried out at Moloy Ghatak's residence after he failed to appear before the central probe agency despite being summoned several times in the alleged coal smuggling case.
Early Sunday morning, Ghatak's two residences in Asansol and one in Chelidanga were cordoned off by a number of central forces deployed late at night. Notably, Ghatak is also under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate along with TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee in the same case.
The CBI began their probe into the multi-crore coal pilferage involving Eastern Coalfields in Bengal's Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol in November 2020. Anup Majhi, a local coal operator, has been named as the prime suspect in the massive scam. Bankura police station's former inspector in-charge Ashok Kumar Mishra and TMC youth wing leader and close aide to Abhishek Banerjee, Vinay Mishra, and his brother Vikas Mishra have also been detained in the case.