The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday arrested Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal from his residence in Birbhum’s Bolpur in connection with a 2020 cattle smuggling case. Mondal, the TMC Bhirbhum district chief, is a close aide of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The central agency produced Mondal before the CBI Special Court in Asansol on Thursday and was granted custody till 20
August.
According to sources in the CBI, Mondal was summoned for questioning by the agency 10 times, but he avoided all summons feigning illness. Even though he was summoned to the CBI office at Nizam’s Palace in Kolkata on Monday August 8, he did not comply with the order. Instead, Mondal checked in to SSKM Hospital, but doctors there said he was healthy.
A CBI team raided Mondal’s house in Birbhum on Thursday at 7 a.m. and arrested him three hours later. Initially, it led to confusion if was being taken to Durgapur camp office to interrogate him further. But eventually he was taken to the ECL guest house at Shitalpur near Asansol.
The central agency had on 21 September 2020 arrested Satish Kumar, a former Border Security Force (BSF) commandant in connection with illegal cattle smuggling across the Indo-Bangladesh border.
Kumar’s interrogation led to many revelations, including the route map of smuggling from West Bengal to Bangladesh. The CBI also received information that smuggling was planned from Rampurhat area of Birbhum. The interrogation led the CBI to Mondal’s close associate Enamul Haque, a hawala operator and kingpin of the smuggling racket, who was arrested in November 2020. Haque’s interrogation in turn led to Mondal’s bodyguard Saygal Hussain. The CBI recovered properties worth crores of rupees from Hussain’s house after his arrest.
Mondal’s involvement in the cattle smuggling case came to notice after the CBI interrogated the two. The central agency also interrogated Ghatal MP Actor Dev too.
Haque was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in February this year on the basis of the CBI FIR a month after he was granted bail by the Supreme Court.
