ED Seizes Rs 41 Lakhs From WB Minister Chandranath Sinha House

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has recovered around Rs 41 lakhs in cash during a marathon raid and search at the residence of West Bengal minister Chandranath Sinha in Bolpur of Birbhum, while probing the school jobs scam.

According to ED sources, Mr Sinha could not disclose the source of the money found his house, Chandralaya, during his questioning following which the wads of cash were seized. The raid which began at around 9 am on Friday ended after 13 hours.

Mr Sinha, who is a Trinamul Congress MLA of Bolpur and minister of micro, small & medium enterprises and textiles department, later said, “I cooperated with them and replied to their questions. They understood what I told them.” He was not home when the ED started the raid.

Mr Sinha was at his ancestral residence in Murarai which is around 90 km away from Chandralaya. He later returned home. Mr Sinha was earlier summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation for questioning in the cattle and coal smuggling cases.

Meanwhile a raid and search by the income tax (I-T) department, which began at the house of Swaroop Biswas, brother of state minister Aroop Biswas, at New Alipore for suspected tax-evasion on March 20, ended after almost 70 hours.

Wife of Swaroop, Jui Biswas, who is a TMC councilor, called the I-T step a ‘political vendetta’ of the BJP. She also claimed that her family never evaded I-T.