Sukanya Mondal, daughter of Trinamool Congress strongman and the party’s Birbhum district president, Anubrata Mondal, will in all probability visit Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) headquarters in New Delhi on November 2 to face questioning in connection with the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal.
Her family sources confirmed a section of the media that the legal brains have advised her that instead of avoiding Central agency’s summons on this count it would be better to face them as desired by the latter.
Incidentally on October 28, ED had issued a fresh summon to Sukanya Mondal to be present at the Central agency’s headquarters in New Delhi on November 2 after she ducked a similar summon by the agency to be present at its New Delhi office on October 27. ED has also directed Anubrata Mondal’s chartered accountant Manish Kothari to be present at their New Delhi office on November 2 along with the relevant documents pertaining to the asset of the Mondal family.
ED sources said that they would like to question Sukanya Mondal on the companies where she is named the director as well as the rice mills in which she is the “partner”.
The two companies — ANM Agrochem Private Limited and Neer Developer Private Limited — are already under the scanner of both ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is also conducting a parallel probe into the cattle smuggling scam.
In both firms, Sukanya Mondal is one of the two directors and the Central agency sleuths believe that these two corporate entities are basically shell companies meant for channelising the crime proceeds.
Recently, the CBI had submitted a charge-sheet where it said that Sukanya Mondal’s annual income increased from Rs 3.10 lakh in the 2013-14 financial year to Rs 1.45 crore in 2020-21. Apart from that she also has a fixed deposit worth Rs 3 crore.
Sources further said that their officers also want to question Sukanya Mondal on certain properties which were registered under her name, and were purchased at prices much lower than the prevailing market rates only to be sold off later at much higher prices.