ED raids residences of Bengal minister, MLA & MLC

Kolkata, Jan 12 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday was conducting marathon and simultaneous raid and search operations at three places in West Bengal, including the residences of a heavyweight minister and a ruling Trinamool MLA.

The ED sleuths accompanied by personnel of the central armed police forces were conducting raids since morning at the residences of West Bengal fire services Minister Sujit Bose, veteran Trinamool Congress legislator Tapas Roy, and a ruling party councilor of North Dum Dum Municipality in North 24 Parganas district, Subodh Chakraborty.

All these raids, sources said, were in connection with the cash-for-municipalities job case in West Bengal.

Taking a lesson from the incident of attack on ED and CAPF personnel at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal during a similar raid and search operations on January 5, the CAPF personnel escorting the ED teams took special safety precautions on Friday.

All the CAPF personnel were sporting metal helmets and were armed with cane-shields in case of repetition of any Sandeshkhali-type attack on them as well as the ED sleuths.

To recall, in August last year ED had summoned Sujit Bose for questioning in the municipalities' job case. However, he ignored that summon at that point of time and did not turn up for interrogation then. In fact, the minister had then accused the ED of putting pressure on his former personal assistant to name him as connected to the municipalities’ job case.

The triangular ED raids since Friday morning started just a day after the Calcutta High Court’s single- judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha ordered an interim stay on any investigation by the West Bengal Police against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials based on an FIR filed at the Nazat Police Station against those sleuths who were attacked along with CAPF personnel on January 5.

While directing the interim stay till March 31, Justice Mantha also questioned whether the police of Nazat Police Station had conducted even a basic ground investigation before registering the FIR against the ED officials.