Bail stayed, 2 TMC ministers spend night in jail

KOLKATA: West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee spent Tuesday night in Kolkata’s Presidency Correctional Home, while legislator Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee were hospitalised as they complained of illness after the Calcutta high court stayed the bail of the four.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested the four under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 120b (criminal conspiracy) and the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with the 2016 Narada sting operation before a special court granted them bail. The case pertains to online news portal Narada News’s two-year-long sting operation. The videos of the operation were uploaded months ahead of the 2016 assembly elections and purportedly showed TMC leaders accepting money in exchange for alleged favours to a fictitious company.

Mitra and Chatterjee were hospitalised around 4am on Tuesday. Chatterjee is diabetic, his friend Baisakhi Banerjee said. Mitra had earlier tested positive for Covid-19.

“I am having breathing trouble. We are elected representatives. We are not thieves and dacoits. They [CBI] should not have treated us like this,” Mitra told reporters while being shifted to the hospital.

A jail official said that Hakim and Mukherjee could also be sent for a check-up. Mukherjee accompanied Mitra and Chatterjee to the hospital but later returned to the jail. “I am not keeping well. I may have to go for a check-up on Tuesday,” Mukherjee told reporters at the hospital early on Tuesday.

Hakim said as the chairman of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s board of administrators, he was supervising the Covid-19 management. “They [CBI] did not allow me to save the people of Kolkata. I was in charge and looking after the management of vaccines, arranging ambulance, and disposing of the dead bodies in the city. I have full faith in the judiciary,” he told journalists before being taken into custody.

A jail official said both Hakim and Mukherjee skipped dinner and took a stroll in the morning.

The high court will hear their bail pleas on Wednesday.