CBI mulls quizzing Anubrata Mondal's daughter

Senior CBI officials said they had reasons to believe, following a scrutiny, that Sukanya purchased high-value assets and properties since 2014

Anubrata Mondal back at Nizam Palace after a health check-up on Sunday.: File photo

Kinsuk Basu   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |    15.08.22 :  The CBI is planning to question arrested Trinamul leader Anubrata Mondal’s daughter Sukanya at her Bolpur home to find some missing links of his wealth, which appears to have swelled during the period when the alleged cattle smuggling took place across Bengal, officials of the investigating agency said.

Mondal had allegedly invested in a few rice mills and agro-chemical companies between 2014 and 2017 when close to 20,000 cows were reportedly smuggled from parts of Murshidabad and Malda using the Birbhum corridor to Bangladesh, CBI sources said.Senior CBI officials said they had reasons to believe, following a scrutiny, that Sukanya purchased high-value assets and properties since 2014.

The agency now wants to know if the money came from her father who had allegedly received crores of rupees as “passage money” from Enamul Haque, alleged kingpin of the cattle smuggling trade.

“Mondal appears to own some properties jointly with Saigal Hossain, his arrested bodyguard. We have recorded Hossain’s statements. Since Mondal is not cooperating we might decide to question his daughter,” said a senior CBI official.

“Considering her privacy and dignity, we may go to Bolpur to question her.”Officials said that between 2015 and 2017 when Satish Kumar was the commandant to the BSF's 36th battalion overseeing Malda and Murshidabad, around 20,000 cows were seized.“The cows were allegedly shown as calves on record books. Put up for auction, they fetched lesser amounts,” the official said.

Haque would allegedly buy these cows at a lesser price and smuggle them to Bangladesh using the Birbhum corridor by paying Mondal for “safe transit”.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), also probing the alleged cattle smuggling case, arrested Kumar in April.So far, Mondal has denied the charges and has reportedly told the probe team that he doesn’t know Haque.CBI officials said Mondal was evasive on Sunday as well, when he was taken to the Command Hospital  in Alipore for his mandatory health check-up.

 A team of doctors attended to Mondal, who suffers from several chronic ailments, for several hours and did his tests before releasing him. Mondal was brought back to the 14th floor office of the CBI’s Anti Corruption Branch in Nizam Palace where he is in lock-up in a corner of an air-conditioned room.“All efforts are being made to ensure that Mondal has nothing to complain about, be it health or food. He gets to speak to his daughter twice over the phone,” the official said. “Despite all this, he is not cooperating with us and is evading most questions being asked.”