Bengal scam: More cash found at minister aide’s house after Rs 21 crore haul
KOLKATA: After recovering cash Rs 21.9 core from the apartment of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday found another stack of cash in an apartment owned by the model-cum-actor in Belgharia near Kolkata.
The central agency, which is probing into the money trail in the teacher recruitment scam, brought eight currency counting machines to assess the volume of cash, which is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the alleged irregularities.
The officials of the investigating agency broke open the door of the apartment on Wednesday morning and started the search operation. “We found cash in the apartment owned by Arpita. The process of counting the currency notes is going on,” said an ED official.
Meanwhile, senior Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested by the ED in connection with the scam, countered repeated queries by the media on whether he would resign by retorting why he should do so.
He was approached by reporters outside the ESI hospital at Joka in the city where he was taken on Wednesday morning along with his associate Arpita Mukherjee for a medical check-up before being interrogated by the ED, which is probing an alleged money trail in the scam that has rocked the state.
Chatterjee was taken to the central government-run medical facility amidst tight security and whisked away about two hours later to the ED office at the CGO complex in Salt Lake area.
To repeated questions by reporters on whether he is considering resigning from the post of a minister, a visibly irritated Chatterjee shot back “What is the reason (to tender the resignation)?”
Asked about the questioning of the minister and his associate, the official said that though Mukherjee has been “cooperative throughout”, the former Bengal education minister was “non-cooperative”.
“We are finding grilling Chatterjee quite difficult. He has been very stubborn and non-cooperative with our officers. He is not replying to our questions,” the official said.
Chatterjee was discharged from the hospital after about two hours of medical tests and was taken back to the ED office at the CGO complex in Salt Lake. He is likely to be questioned along with Arpita and Manik Bhattacharya, the TMC MLA and former president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education, the official said.
The ED had arrested Chatterjee, who is also TMC secretary general, on Saturday in connection with its investigation into the irregularities in the recruitment of teachers by the School Service Commission.
