After getting new set of officers as part of Special Task Force (STF) from different zones to accelerate probe, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has been often pulled up by the judiciary for the lax probe, today went on marathon raids and interrogation, fanning out to different districts in the recruitment scam.
The team of officers divided into several groups and fanned out to three different districts of Murshidabad, Birbhum and East Midnapore and conducted raids and interrogation, to what the agency sources claimed, in search of fresh leads from the alleged suspects in cashfor-job scam.
First, in Murshidabad, the agency officers continued to stay put and engaged in marathon quizzing since yesterday at the residence of Jiban Krishna Saha, Trinamul Congress MLA from Baronaya, in connection with his alleged complicity in the teachers recruitment scam. They stepped up their probe in search of his elusive two phones.
The MLA, Saha, threw his mobile phones in a pond while the CBI was conducting the raid. In the raid, the CBI has recovered a number of incriminating documents, including admit cards for written examinations for recruitment of primary, upper primary and second sections in state-run schools.
Sources said that a diary has also been recovered which might contain records of scam proceeds collected. During the course of investigation and through questioning of arrested and expelled youth Trinamul Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh, the central agency sleuths came across a local agent named Kaushik Ghosh.
Sources said that Kaushik Ghosh mainly acted as an agent in Murshidabad and his task was mainly to arrange for prospective candidates willing to pay hefty amounts of money for getting appointments in staterun schools. From Kaushik Ghosh, the CBI sleuths came to know of Saha’s involvement in the scam. In Birbhum, meanwhile, another team today conducted a search at an ashram and residence of the former Trinamul Congress Nalhati block president Bibhas Adhikari.
His flat at Amherst Street too was raided and later sealed by the agency officers. Bibhas Adhikari, was being quizzed allegedly in connection with his complicity recruitment scam. Adhikari is known to be close confidant of Trinamul legislator and the former president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) Manik Bhattacharya, who is currently in judicial custody.
The search operations at the premises of Adhikari started on Saturday morning when another team of CBI was continuing similar operations at the residence of Manik Bhattacharya, TMC legislator from Burwan in Murshidabad district that started at 1.30 pm on Friday.
Gopal Dalapati’s Bhupatinagar residence at East Midnapore too was raided and his family members interrogated. Dalapati, whose name was first dropped by Ghosh and later Tapas Mandol in connection with his being the alleged beneficiary of proceeds in recruitment scam. Later, a team also went to his estranged wife Haimanti’s Haridevpur residence and conducted searchs there.