My wife didn’t carry any gold from Thailand, says Mamata Banerjee’s nephew

Kolkata: Crying foulplay by the BJP against him ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and Trinamul MP Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday dismissed the allegation of recovery of 2 kg gold from his wife Rujira Naroola baggage and her detention at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport when she recently landed here from Bangkok.

He claimed that his wife was heckled by the Customs because he filed a case against BJP president Amit Shah earlier. Mr Banerjee, who is a Trinamul candidate from Diamond Harbour, wondered why the gold was not seized by the Customs.

Referring to reports in a section of the media that his wife was found to be carrying two kg gold by customs authorities at the city airport, he said, “Was the chowkidar of the country sleeping? Or was he off-duty?” He also wondered why the Customs lodged an FIR a week after the incident on March 16.

He informed that a counter FIR has also been lodged against the Customs for demanding bribe from his wife before letting her go.

Mr Banerjee’s attack on the BJP-led NDA government comes soon after the BJP accused him of sending the police to escorting his wife out of the Customs’ detention. The CPI(M) and Congress also trained guns on him.

Mr Banerjee claimed, “For the past few days the BJP and CPI(M) leaders went all out to make a fake news viral through various social networking sites and portals that my wife was caught with two kg of gold at the airport. Their aim was to encash an opportunity before the polls. Somewhere it was claimed that she was arrested. Elsewhere, she was reported to have been detained. But it is purely a lie.”

He wondered how the copy of the FIR, titled “secret”, reached media houses. “Where does the government stand? In the cover letter of the FIR, Cu-stoms’ commissioner (Kol-kata Zone) Manish Chan-da wrote to one S.K. Bisw-as in a way which suggests that the FIR was drafted from New Delhi. The name of CBIC, ministry of finance, was mentioned,” Mr Banerjee alleged.