Bengal cattle smuggling case: CBI may quiz Anubrata Mondal again as more assets emerge

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal, will seek fresh permission to interrogate Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondalin judicial custody.

Source said that the central agency officials are considering this fresh move after tracing fresh assets and properties registered in the names of Mondal and his family members.

Mondal, the Trinamool Congress’s Birbhum district president, is currently in judicial custody in New Delhi's Tihar Jail in connection with his alleged involvement in the multi-crore cattle smuggling case.

Fresh assets in the names of Mondal, his family members and close associates, include petrol pumps, landed property and rice-mills.

The counsel of the central agency has already informed a special court of CBI at Asansol in West Burdwan district about the new recoveries by the investigating sleuths.

The CBI counsel has especially mentioned about a petrol pump registered in the name of Mondal’s daughter Sukanya Mondal, jointly with the ruling party strongman’s close associate Bidyut Baran Gayen.

Also under the CBI scanner are huge transactions in the accounts of the real estate construction company, which again is registered in the name of the brother-in- law Sehgal Hossain, the erstwhile bodyguard of Mondal.

Both Sukanya Mondal and Sehgal Hossain are currently under judicial custody at Tihar jail in New Delhi.

Sources said that the investigations have revealed that the kingpins of the alleged scam have involved their close family members and their kin in diverting proceeds in the scam just as Mondal has done involving his daughter.

“Just as investment in sins pays a full return, Sukanya Mondal too seems to be paying the price for being involved in the investments in sin made by her father,” a CBI associate said.