West Bengal minister Jyotipriyo Mallick arrested by ED in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate has arrested West Bengal Minister Jyotipriyo Mallick in the early hours of Friday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in a case relating to a multi-crore ration scam in the state said official sources. The arrest comes after almost 17-18 hours of questioning and multiple searches after which he was taken from his residence at Salt Lake to the central agency’s office at 3:30 AM. He will later be taken to a local court where ED will seek his custody.

“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. The ED had earlier arrested a confidant of the minister Bakibur Rahman whose remand is ending this week and there is a possibility that ED will bring both of them face to face.

After the agency had conducted searches at his premises along with his ancestral home on Amherst Street in Central Kolkata, 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. Trinamool Congress 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 TMC, BJP said that this arrest was expected considering the pace of the investigation. 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.”

Meanwhile, raids by the ED at the residence of WB Minister Jyotipriyo Mallick are still underway ever since the raids started on Thursday. “We are talking to the minister and the process might continue for a few more hours. We have seized several documents from his residences, and the minister’s bank accounts are being scrutinised. Searches are also underway at the residences of Mallick’s former personal assistant in the Dum Dum area, and at a few other places, including Beliaghata and Basdroni,” the ED officer said.

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