Officials said Abhishek Banerjee’s statement will be registered under the Money Laundering Prevention Act (PMLA) and he is expected to face some “evidence” collected by investigators in the case.
TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) here Monday for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in West Bengal. The 34-year-old national secretary general of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) was seen entering the new office of the Central Investigation Office in central Delhi around 11 a.m.
Officials said Abhishek Banerjee’s statement will be registered under the Money Laundering Prevention Act (PMLA) and he is expected to face some “evidence” collected by investigators in the case. His role and ties to other suspects are under investigation, they said. The Diamond Harbor MP was questioned in this case once in September last year.
Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, told reporters at Kolkata airport on Sunday that the BJP government at the Center is using the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for its political interests because it was unable to accept the setback in West Bengal’s 2021 election polls. His wife Rujira also left for Delhi with him and is expected to be questioned by the service in the same case on Tuesday.
The ED’s subpoena against the two came after the Delhi High Court on March 11 rejected a plea by the couple challenging the agency’s statements asking them to appear in the national capital instead of Kolkata. The agency filed the case under the terms of the PMLA based on a November 2020 CBI-registered FIR alleging a multi-crore coal robbery in connection with Eastern Coalfields Limited’s mines in the Kunustoria and Kajora areas of the state in and around Asansol. Local coal operator Anup Majhi alias Lala is said to be the prime suspect in the case.
The ED had alleged that the MP was a beneficiary of funds obtained from this illegal trade. It has so far arrested two people in this case. One of them is Vikas Mishra, brother of TMC youth wing leader Vinay Mishra, who is said to have left the country some time ago and renounced his Indian citizenship.
The second person arrested in the case is the former inspector in charge of Bankura’s Ashok Kumar Mishra Police Station. The ED had previously alleged that the Mishra brothers received “crime income worth Rs 730 crore on behalf of some influential persons and for themselves” in this case with an estimated amount of Rs 1,352 crore.
A “deep system” of political patronage and “well-oiled” machinery was used to blatantly run certain illegal coal mines in West Bengal, the ED has claimed in a court as she remanded inspector in custody last April. Mishra demanded.A In May, a complaint was also filed by the ED.
Citing the recorded statement of an unidentified “close associate” of Majhi, the ED had previously claimed that he had run his “illegal mining company smoothly by directing senior officials of a political party in West Bengal through Inspector Mishra”. The statement of this unidentified “witness”, provided by the ED in custody, stated that “it is a known fact that Vinay Mishra raised money from the illegal mining of Majhi and his associates for his closely associated political boss in the current ruling party; that Vinay Mishra is the youth leader of TMC and that he is very close to Abhishek Banerjee and that he (Vinay Mishra) is the eyes and ears of Abhishek Banerjee.” The agency had claimed that documents seized by the agency show that “Majhi assisted in transferring substantial funds obtained from the proceeds of crime to the closest relatives of Shri Abhishek Banerjee (wife and sister-in-law) in London and Thailand”.
This post Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee appears before ED in Delhi for questioning in money laundering case
was original published at “https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/trinamool-mp-abhishek-banerjee-appears-before-ed-in-delhi-for-questioning-in-money-laundering-case/2466612/”
