Anubrata Mandal named by CBI in cattle-smuggling charge sheet

ASANSOL/KOLKATA: The CBI on Friday named Trinamool Birbhum president Anubrata Mandal in its charge sheet on cross-border cattle smuggling, 57 days after the leader's arrest, alleging that he used to arrange for "safe passage"of cattle via the Birbhum corridor, and repeating their allegation that he was the "omnipotent facilitator" of illegal cattle trade.
The agency - which has questioned 97 persons of interest so far, and whose statements corroborating charges against Mandal it has mentioned in the charge sheet - has alleged that the Trinamool leader ran the cattle-smuggling racket, starting from procuring to transporting it through the international border.
Also on Friday, the ED, which is probing the money trail, took Mandal's former security guard, Saigal Hossain, into custody after questioning him for four hours in jail.
The CBI, in its 35-page charge sheet against Mandal submitted to Asansol court judge Rajesh Chakrabarty, claimed Mandal - now lodged in Asansol Correctional Home - was in touch with operation "mastermind" Enamul Haque, who is in jail. The agency said Hossain would collect money from Haque and alleged cattle racketeer Abdul Latif on behalf of the Trinamool heavyweight.
Anirban Guhathakurta, Mandal's lawyer, said they were yet to receive a copy of the charge sheet. "We will legally combat it after going through it," he added.
The CBI has mentioned investments allegedly made by Mandal during 2014 and 2018, apart from "huge properties" in Kolkata and Bolpur. "He has accumulated huge properties in his name and in the name of his family members by using illegal cash received in cattle-smuggling," the agency later told the press.
In its third supplementary charge sheet, the agency had referred to 53 land deeds owned by Mandal, his deceased wife and daughter, as well as fixed deposits adding up to nearly Rs 18 crore.
It had also submitted details of his bank accounts, unearthed after questioning his chartered accountant, Manish Jain, and officials of private banks in Bolpur.
A CBI spokesperson claimed that Trinamool Birbhum president Anubrata Mandal had invested a huge amount of money, which he had received from Enamul Haque, whom the agency called the "mastermind" of the cattle-smuggling case
A four-member ED team - including two officers from Delhi - went to Asansol jail on Friday morning to interrogate Mandal's former security guard, Saigal Hossain, on assets his family had allegedly amassed over the past few years. They arrested him for not cooperating with the probe.
ED officers now want to take Hossain, who had been in CBI custody before the Asansol court remanded him in judicial custody, to Delhi for questioning. The agency's counsel also made a plea to produce him in court.
The Asansol court had on September 29 allowed the ED to question Hossain in jail. ED investigators interrogated him on property documents seized by CBI as well as bank accounts discovered after questioning his wife.
The CBI counsel had told the court that the value of Hossain's assets could be worth Rs 150 crore.