Money found in flats not mine, says Arpita
Enforcement Directorate raids several premises linked to her in Kolkata
KOLKATA: On a day when officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the multi-crore teacher recruitment scam, on Tuesday conducted search operations at two more flats and nail art shops allegedly linked to Arpita Mukherjee, the former said that crores of rupees recovered by the agency from her apartments didn’t belong to her and had slipped into her residences without her knowledge.
A few days earlier, arrested and now suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and former Education minister Partha Chatterjee had also claimed that the recovered cash didn’t belong to him.
On Tuesday, sleuths of ED raided two flats in South Kolkata one on Panditiya Road and the other in Madurdaha, along with two nail art shops in the northern part of the city, agency sources said.
ED officials conducted raids at the nail parlours of Mukherjee in Baranagar and Patuli. In both places, ED officials called key makers to gain entry inside the parlours. This apart, a promoter was also questioned. The promoter had sold the shop to Mukherjee in Patuli.
ED officials also conducted raids in two flats at Madurdah and on Panditia Road in South Kolkata. The flat in Panditia Road is said to be of Chatterjee’s. Reportedly, the flat was a gift from a businessman to Chatterjee.
However, the name of the flat owner is of someone else in the documents. Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee will be produced before a PMLA court again on Wednesday, with the 10-day ED custody coming to an end.
Earlier in the day, Mukherjee, on her arrival at ESI hospital in Joka for a medical check-up, told the waiting reporters that money was placed in her apartments without her knowledge.
Chatterjee, who has been relieved of his ministerial duties, had said on a past occasion that he was a “victim of a conspiracy”.
Meanwhile, a woman from Amtala area—Shubra Ghorui— on Tuesday made an attempt to throw her shoes at Chatterjee when the latter was being escorted out of a hospital here by ED officials. However, the footwear flung by the woman missed Chatterjee.
“It is not only my anger but that of lakhs and lakhs of people of West Bengal,” Ghorui later told reporters.