Teacher's Recruitment Scam : Rs 29 crore in cash, 5kg gold seized from minister's aide
Teacher's Recruitment Scam : Rs 29 crore in cash, 5kg gold seized from minister's aide
Earlier, the ED had recovered over Rs 20 crore from another flat of Arpita Mukherjee, an associate of Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee.
Nearly Rs 29 crore in cash and 5 kilograms of gold were seized from a flat in Kolkata owned by Arpita Mukherjee, an aide of jailed West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, Enforcement Directorate officials told ABP Ananda on Thursday morning.
Chatterjee and Mukherjee were arrested on July 23 in connection with the central agency’s investigation into the alleged teacher recruitment scam in the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2018.
They have been remanded in the agency’s custody till August 3.
On July 22, the Enforcement Directorate had recovered more than Rs 20 crore from another Kolkata flat linked to Mukherjee.
The stash recovered on Wednesday was kept in a flat in Club Town Heights, an apartment complex in the city’s Belgharia locality, The Indian Express reported, citing Enforcement Directorate officials.
“ We have recovered a huge amount of money from one of the flats in a housing complex,” an unidentified official of the agency said. “We brought three note-counting machines to get the exact amount. Besides cash, gold bars, jewellery and other documents have also been recovered.”
Officials said that Mukherjee told them about the Belgharia flat during her questioning. She reportedly told the investigators that the money was kickback from the state’s teacher recruitment scam, according to NDTV.
“ Partha used my house and that of another woman as a mini-bank,” Mukherjee said. “The other woman is also his close friend.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded that Chatterjee be sacked from the state Cabinet.
“They have looted money and denied jobs to genuine candidates,” BJP National Vice President Dilip Ghosh said, according to The Indian Express. “The culprits must be punished.”
The Trinamool Congress said that if found guilty, the persons involved in the case must be brought to justice.
“ There is no word to condemn such a crime,” the party’s state General Secretary Kunal Ghosh said. “The party will not defend anyone who is involved in this.”
