Separate teams of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers raided six locations in and around Kolkata on Tuesday in connection with the ongoing investigation into alleged irregularities in Bengal’s public distribution system (PDS).
ED officers said they carried out the search and seizure operations to try and identify the route through which the alleged proceeds of the crime passed and identify the persons who were involved in the process.
While questioning Shankar Addya, a former chairman of Bongaon Municipality who was arrested on January 6 for his alleged involvement in the irregularities, it had emerged that around Rs 20,000 crore was transferred through moneychangers, a senior officer of the central investigating agency said.
Lawyers representing Addya have said the foreign exchange agencies owned by him were not involved in any illegal transactions.
Tuesday’s search-and-seizure operations were carried out across six addresses in New Alipore, Park Street, Russell Street, Salt Lake, Kaikhali and Baguiati.
Officers said the owner of the sixth-floor apartment in Kaikhali that was raided on Tuesday had thrown away mobile phones when the ED team reached the building. The sleuths recovered the phones from the rooftop of an adjoining house.
In Salt Lake, the ED raided the house of a businessman. Soon after the agency sleuths reached the house, a few officers from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate turned up to verify whether the officers who had gone to search the house were from ED.
“We have informed the office of the deputy police commissioner, headquarters, (of the Bidhannagar commissionerate) about the raid this morning and there’s nothing to doubt that we are ED officials,” a senior officer of the raiding team told officers from the commissionerate. The police team left soon thereafter.
“We want to find out whether some of the personalities under the scanner had helped Addya transfer proceeds of the crime,” an ED officer said.
