Sukanya Mondal, daughter of Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal, will skip her scheduled appearance at the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday for questioning on the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal.
Sukanya Mondal informed the probe agency of the development citing personal reasons and also sought some more time before she is questioned by the ED sleuths.
ED sources said that Sukanya Mondal was supposed to be questioned on the companies wherein she is 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 the 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 lakhs 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.
The ED 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.