Enforcement Directorate has conducted raids on the residential premises of Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee, and seized cash amounting to approximately 20 crore rupees in connection with an alleged teacher recruitment scam in the state.
In a statement, ED said, the said amount is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the said SSC scam. Apart from this, the probe agency also raided the premises of Minister of State for Education Paresh C Adhikary and ex-president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya and others.
The search teams took the help of bank officials for counting cash through machines. More than 20 mobile phones have also been seized during the raids at the premises of Arpita. The others who were raided include PK Bandopadhyay, OSD to Partha Chatterjee when he was the state education minister earlier, and his then personal secretary Sukanta Acharjee.
A number of incriminating documents, records, details of dubious companies, electronic devices, foreign currency and gold have been recovered from the premises of persons linked to the scam.
The ED’s money-laundering case stems from an FIR by the CBI, which was first directed by the Calcutta High Court to investigate the alleged scam in the recruitment of Group ‘C’ and ‘D’ staff, assistant teachers of classes 11 and primary teachers.