Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate has arrested West Bengal minister Jyotipriyo Mallick in a money laundering case linked to an alleged multi-core ration distribution scam in the state, official sources said on Friday.
The minister was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the early hours of Friday following over 17 to 18 hours of questioning, they said.
He will be produced before a local court where the ED will seek his custody.
Mallick, who is a diabetic patient and has several other ailments, was taken to an ESI hospital in Joka in the southern part of the city, where he underwent medical tests, an ED officer said.
The minister, after three hours of medical checkup at the hospital, was taken to the Bankshall Court here, he said, adding that “we need him for questioning, and that’s why we’ll seek his custody.”
“He was non-cooperative and gave confusing and self-contradictory replies to our officers during the questioning yesterday. He kept on saying that he was unable to take questions as he was ill. We need him to get answers to several queries related to the scam. The minister has been involved in the ration distribution irregularities,” the ED officer told PTI.
“I am a victim of a great conspiracy,” the TMC minister said after being arrested by ED in connection with the alleged ration distribution scam.
Mallick also alleged that the “conspiracy was hatched by the BJP and its leader Suvendu Adhikari”, a former colleague in the TMC party.
“It is a conspiracy. The BJP is actively engaging in plotting nefarious schemes against us,” said Mallick, who is currently state forest minister and previously held the portfolio of food and supplies.
The ED had earlier arrested a confidant of the minister, Bakibur Rahman, whose remand is ending this week.
Sources said that the central agency may seek to confront the two with each other’s version of events in the case.
Mallick’s arrest is the second instance of a cabinet minister of TMC being apprehended by central agencies in connection with corruption cases.
Last year, former state minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the ED in a case related to a school job scam.
The agency had launched searches at Mallick’s residences on Thursday. It also raided his ancestral house on Amherst Street in central Kolkata. The alleged scam pertains to reported irregularities in the public distribution system and also in the distribution of food grains during the Covid lockdowns.
Earlier on Thursday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee threatened to file a police complaint if anything happened to Mallick during the questioning as he was unwell and had several medical ailments.
Banerjee also termed the raids by the ED against opposition leaders as “a dirty political game” by the BJP.
The Trinamool Congress, which had previously described the raids at Mallick’s residences as “vendetta politics”, wondered why the central agencies were “silent” on BJP leaders who are accused of being involved in various scams.
“Why are CBI and ED silent on BJP leaders like Suvendu Adhikari, whose name has come up in the Narada and Saradha scam? Is it because he is the leader of the BJP? The central agencies are working as extended party offices of the BJP,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.
TMC’s state vice president Jay Parkash Majumdar said such “threats” won’t cow down the ruling party in West Bengal ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
Asked about Mallick’s arrest, state Food and Supplies Minister Rathin Ghosh said, “It won’t be right to draw any conclusion now when the investigation is still on. Let the investigation be over.”
Party leader and state minister Shashi Panja also criticised the raids at Mallick’s residences, asserting that “this is an attack on the culture of Bengal at the time of ‘Bijoya Dasami’ and is nothing but vendetta politics”.
In response to the arrest of the state minister, the BJP said it was “expected” considering the pace of the investigation in the case.
BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “The arrest was anticipated after the revelations made by one of his associates, who was apprehended a few days ago. It has once again been proven that the TMC is deeply mired in corruption”.
Taking to X, formerly, Twitter, leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari said, “Henceforth, the state cabinet meeting will be convened inside the jail.”
In the past one year, two other MLAs and TMC Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal have been arrested in connection with school job scams and cattle smuggling cases by central agencies.
PTI