ED wants to grill Anubrata Mondal thoroughly on shell company angle

Kolkata, Aug 23 (IANS) With the role of shell companies becoming evident in channelising the proceeds of the illegal cattle trade in West Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) now is increasingly feeling the necessity of interrogating Trinamool Congress strongman and the party's Birbhum district president, Anubrata Mondal.

Mondal is currently under the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is ending on Wednesday and he will be presented at the special court of CBI.

ED sources said that their high- command was mulling on two options. The first option is to apply to the court for taking Mondal in their custody from the CBI and then grill him in the matter. The second option is getting the permission of the court to interrogate him in the CBI or judicial custody, whichever of the two is decided in the court on Wednesday.

Explaining why it has become a necessity for them to grill Anubrata Mondal in the matter, ED sources said that tracking the money- trail angle in case of financial embezzlement has two steps. The first step is joining the dots from the figures in the books of accounts of shell companies or the transactions from the bank accounts involved in the matter. The second step is to integrate the persons concerned on the basis of the figures available after analyzing such accounts.

In the cattle smuggling case the names of two shell companies namely ANM Agrochem Foods Pvt Ltd and Neer Developer Pvt Ltd have already surfaced. In both these companies, Anubrata Mondal's daughter, Sukanya Mondal and his close associate, Bidyut Baran Gayen are the two directors.

As per the findings of the CBI, both these companies have mentioned huge amounts of unsecured loans given in their books of accounts. There comes the role of ED to track the individuals or entities to whom such unsecured loans were given and what had been the fate of such loans.

The second aspect is the confiscated fixed deposits worth Rs 16.97 crore held by Mondal, his deceased wife, daughter and some other close relatives. There comes ED's role to track the source of funds for opening such huge deposits and finding out whether the proceeds of illegal cattle trade were the source of funds for these fixed deposits.

The third aspect is the existence of two rice mills and several plots of land either held by Mondal or by his close relatives all in Birbhum district, where he is the Trinamool Congress district president. There again comes the questions about the sources of funds for purchasing such properties.