ED requests Bengal Police to start parallel probe in ration distribution case

Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday sent a communiqué to West Bengal Police requesting the latter to reinitiate its own parallel investigation in the ration distribution case.

In the communiqué forwarded by the central agency to the office of the state police Director General Manoj Malviya suggesting the proposed parallel probe against the different rice-mills and the flour-mills in the state which reportedly played the role of catalysts in the ration distribution case.

ED, in its communiqué, had also assured all necessary assistance to the state police with the necessary information available with the central agency sleuths. Sources aware of the development said since ED’s ambit of investigation is just limited to the money laundering aspect in the alleged scam, it is not possible for their sleuths to probe the bigger nexus involving these rise-mills and flour-mills.

In the communiqué, sources said, the central agency has also pointed out that the complaints regarding the ration distribution case had been surfacing since 2020 and if timely measures would have been taken by the state police at that point of time, then the extent of irregularities could have been arrested to a great extent.

This week ED submitted its first charge sheet in the ration distribution case where it named West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick and Kolkata- based businessman Bakibur Rahaman as the masterminds in the case.

In the charge sheet the central agency sleuths have also detailed on how the proceeds of the alleged scam were channelized and diverted through 10 shell corporate entities especially opened for that purpose.

The ED sleuths have also confiscated 58 term deposits in the names of the arrested minister’s daughter and wife involving a massive amount of Rs 2.89 crore. The mentions of these term deposits are there in the first charge sheet filed by the ED at a special court in Kolkata on Tuesday.