Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal, arrested Sukanya Mondal on Wednesday (April 26) in Delhi. Sukanya Mondal is the daughter of Mamata Banerjee’s close aide and Trinamool Congress ‘strongman’ Anubrata Mondal, who was also arrested by CBI in November last year for his alleged involvement in the same case.
Sukanya Mondal was called by the ED to its headquarters in Delhi in connection with the case due to large unaccounted properties and bank accounts directly related to her and arrested after hours of questioning. Reportedly, she was interrogated for several hours, but as the officers didn’t get satisfactory answers, she was arrested. She said that she does not know anything when she was asked about the huge amounts of money traced by the ED and numerous properties registered in her name. Sukanya Mondal said that her father knows about these matters.
Sukanya Mondal arrived at the ED office in Delhi in the morning, and after a daylong questioning in which she evaded most of the questions, ED arrested her. She will be produced before a Rose Avenue Court in Delhi tomorrow by the ED. ED will seek her custody for further questioning.
Notably, Sukanya Mondal has, for all this while, evaded ED summons. She skipped the first summons in which she was asked to be present at ED’s central headquarters in New Delhi on March 15. After that, the ED sent a second notice directing her to be present on March 20, but she had communicated to the ED through her counsel that owing to health reasons she would need seven days.
The agency, last month, hinted at taking stern action against Sukanya Mondal if she made renewed attempts to dodge ED’s summons.
Interestingly, while Mondal is a teacher at a state-run primary school, she has a large number of assets registered in her name.
TMC leader Anubrata Mondal arrested by CBI
Notably, the CBI, in a rather dramatic arrest, picked up the heavyweight leader of Trinamool Congress (TMC) from his house in Bolpur, West Bengal, at around 10 in the morning of August 11, 2022 in connection with the multi-crore cattle smuggling case. As per reports, a team of the CBI went to his residence with the CRPF being deployed outside and arrested Mamata Banerjee’s top aide Anubrata Mondal. The CBI team was accompanied by a team of 100 CRPF personnel, who had surrounded the residence while the CBI officials entered the house and arrested the TMC leader.
Anubrata Mondal is currently lodged at Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Calcutta HC summons Sukanya Mondal in WB SSC scam case
Apart from being accused of involvement in the cattle smuggling case, Sukanya Mondal is also being probed for her alleged involvement in the West Bengal SSC scam.
In fact, last year, Calcutta High Court asked Sukanya Mondal to produce her Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) certificate before the court. It also asked her to submit her mark sheet for all further hearings to take place in the TET case.
The order was issued in response to a petition alleging that Sukanya and others were illegally hired in state-run schools despite failing to pass the mandatory Teacher Eligibility Test (TET).
Sukanya, according to the petition, has never worked since she was hired, despite the fact that her school is in the Bolpur circle, close to where she lives. Another shocking allegation made by the petitioner was that the school’s attendance register was sent to her house for her to sign.