The multi-storied building is at the tip of the nose of Kolkata Police Headquarters Lalbazar. Detectives suspect that a large amount of money went to the three Congress MLAs of Jharkhand from the office of a share trading company on the fourth floor of the multi-storied building called ‘Bikaner’. CID recovered three lakh 31 thousand 700 rupees and 225 silver coins from the multi-story opposite side of Lalbazar on Tuesday afternoon based on the interrogation of the MLAs caught in the same money recovery case.
Reason for procuring money
The owner Mahendra Agarwal is absconding from the office of the share trading company in the ‘Bikaner’ building where the money and coins were recovered. Allegedly, Rs 50 lakh went from him to three Jharkhand MLAs Arfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachhap, and Naman Bixal. Five people including the three Congress MLAs have already been arrested in this incident. The CID claimed that the MLAs under interrogation admitted that the money was initially given in a conspiracy to topple the Jharkhand Congress-JMM alliance government. The investigators are trying to find out how much money was stolen.
CID’s statement
According to the CID, Jharkhand Youth Congress leader Pratik Kumar delivered the Rs 50 lakh from Mahendra’s office to three Congress MLAs. He has already been arrested. On the way to Ranchi with the money, the MLAs were caught at Panchla in Howrah on Saturday afternoon. According to cross-examination and other relevant sources, the Congress MLAs stayed at a hotel on Sadar Street. In the CCTV footage of the hotel, Pratik was seen leaving the hotel on a scooty and entering with a bag.
Detectives arrested a relative of Mahendra on Monday. A search of the house in Salt Lake did not find the whereabouts of the fugitive Mahendra. According to CID, the businessman is in a foreign state, his family said. Mahendra’s office was closed on Tuesday. Two hours later, a team of detectives broke the lock of the office at around 2. After about three hours of searching, the locks of cupboards and drawers were finally broken. Money and silver coins were there. They are confiscated.
Documents of six bank accounts were also found. CID IG (2) Pranab Kumar and additional SS Shanti Das reached the spot after receiving the information. The office was sealed by the CID.
According to intelligence sources, to know the source of the money, the staff of that office, except Mahendra, need to be interrogated. According to the detectives, the money came from Assam to the share trading office through hawala. Sleuths alleged that the money was being used to ‘buy’ MLAs to topple the Congress-JMM government in Jharkhand. The CID claims that the names of several influential politicians have emerged after the interrogation of the arrested. A section claims that they will also be called for the sake of investigation.
Also yesterday, the ED conducted searches at twelve places associated with the National Herald’s headquarters Herald House and the publishing house Associated Journals.