The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials probing the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, on Monday, snapped the Internet connections of the server room of the commission’s office at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
This step has been taken, according to CBI officials, to eliminate chances of the computers at the WBSSC office getting hacked or anyone remotely accessing them.
At the same time, the CBI sleuths have also sealed two rooms of the WBSSC, that house 14 computers and six almirahs, where crucial documents are stored. Already the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel are in charge of the security of the WBSSC office following an instruction of the Calcutta High Court’s single judge Bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
CBI sources said that the data stored in the computers at the WBSSC official have crucial links about the alleged irregularities done to manipulate merit lists for recruitment of out-of-turn persons. Considering the alleged involvement of heavyweight leaders and ministers of the state, the central agency sleuths suspect that there might be attempts to tamper with or destroy crucial data relating to the recruitment process and hence sleuths did not take any chances and disconnected the Internet to the server room of the WBSSC office.
Already the CBI has grilled former West Bengal education minister and Trinamul Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee and the current minister of state for education, Paresh Chandra Adhikary in this connection. The CBI has also filed a fresh FIR against five erstwhile top officials of the WBSSC, all of whom were members of the former state education minister Partha Chatterjee-appointed screening committee. Their property, assets and bank account details are also under the scanner of the central agency.
Due to the ongoing probe, current state education minister, Bratya Basu and state education secretary, Manish Jain have cancelled their official tours to London.