Kolkata: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police has arrested another accused in the multi-crore illegal land-grabbing case in Salboni of West Midnapore district, taking the total number of arrests in the case to three.
The latest arrest is that of Amit Ghosh, a resident of Saidpur village in West Midnapore, who was taken into custody on Monday in connection with the alleged illegal transfer and sale of government-vested land.
According to investigators, he was a close associate of former Trinamool Congress legislator Sujoy Hazra and Sumit Roy, personal assistant to Trinamool Congress national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee. Both Hazra and Roy were arrested earlier in the probe.
Sources in the state police said Amit Ghosh has been named as the sixth accused in the charge sheet filed by the West Bengal Police in a district court and is believed to possess crucial information about the alleged modus operandi of the land scam.
Investigators claim that forged documents were used to transfer and sell more than 50 acres of government land, with Amit allegedly playing a significant role in the operation.
A team of CID officers reached Medinipur on Monday and, with assistance from the district police, arrested Amit Ghosh.
Confirming the development, West Midnapore Superintendent of Police Papia Sultana said the arrest was made following a requisition from the CID. “The CID officers gave us a requisition. Based on that, Amit Ghosh was arrested and handed over to the CID,” she said.
Meanwhile, two other accused named in the charge sheet, Kailash Agrawal and Sarfuddin Khan, have moved the Calcutta High Court seeking anticipatory bail. Both have been accused of collaborating with a section of Block Land and Land Reforms Office (BLRO) officials to convert government-vested land into private property allegedly at the behest of Hazra and Roy.
Roy was arrested by the CID on September 10, shortly after a division bench of the Calcutta High Court vacated the interim protection from coercive action granted to him. He was produced before a district court in West Midnapore the following day and remanded to eight days of CID custody.
(IANS)
