West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday visited the residence of nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee ahead of the CBI questioning of his wife in the coal-smuggling scam.
The TMC supremo was at Abhishek’s house for around ten minutes. The CBI team arrived there within minutes of Mamata’s departure.
served a notice to be a witness in the ongoing coal pilferage case probe, ABP Ananda reported. On the other hand, a section of Bengali media has reported that CBI sought to question Rujira after discovering links of monetary transaction between her and the main accused of the coal case.
Rujira on Monday responded to the CBI’s notice in the alleged multi-crore coal pilferage scam and asked the central agency to send its team to her residence for examination between 11 am and 3 pm on Tuesday.
The CBI had on Sunday asked her to join the probe.
The CBI notice to Abhishek’s wife came days after he had lodged a defamation case against Amit Shah. The Calcutta High Court has summoned the Union Home Minister to appear before itself physically or through a lawyer on Monday.
Meanwhile, earlier this week on Friday, CBI had raided 13 locations across four districts of West Bengal in connection with the multi-crore coal scam, in which a businessman called Anup Majhi alias Lala stands as one of the main accused.
The raids were carried out at the premises of Amiya Steel Pvt Ltd in Kolkata and Bankura and that of Joydeb Mandal, the alleged deputy of the suspected kingpin of the racket Manjhi, news agency PTI reported. The investigating agency had conducted raids in Paschim Bardhaman and Purulia as well.
It is alleged that Manjhi is involved in illegal mining and theft of coal from leasehold mines of ECL in Kunustoria and Kajora areas, the CBI said.
The CBI acted on information from “reliable sources” that indicated illegal excavation and theft of coal in the leasehold area of ECL in “connivance” with officials of ECL, CISF and Railways.
With PTI inputs