Kolkata: A team of Income Tax (I-T) Department officials, heavily escorted by central armed police forces (CAPF) personnel, have started conducting raid and search operations at the residence of a local Trinamool Congress leader Kumar Saha at Kalighat in Kolkata, which is close to the official residence of the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, on Friday.
The I-T department action is part of investigation in the same illegal land-grabbing related money laundering case over which another team of I-T officials is conducting the residence and electoral camp office of veteran Trinamool Congress legislator and Member Mayor-in-Council, Debasish Kumar.
In the same case, the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are conducting raids and search operations at the offices of a real estate company and the residence of a chartered accountant in different pockets in and around Kolkata.
Trinamool Congress workers have assembled and started staging a protest in front of the residences of both Kumar and Saha.
They are saying these actions by the ED and I-T Department are a result of the vendetta by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Union government to harass Trinamool Congress leaders just before the crucial two-phase Assembly elections in the state later this month.
Though not in any elected representative post, Saha is known as an influential organiser in Trinamool Congress.
A businessman by profession, Saha is mainly responsible for assembling crowds at different public programmes of Trinamool Congress in Kolkata.
On the other hand, Kumar had been re-nominated again as the Trinamool Congress candidate from his native Rashbehari Assembly Constituency in Kolkata.
The main charge in this land-grabbing-related money laundering case is that they fabricated and forged documents and fraudulently acquired various parcels of land, including public land, and subsequently exploited the land commercially by launching large-scale real estate projects.
On April 1, the ED recovered more than Rs 1 crore in cash from the house of a company executive in the Behala area of the city.
Unlicensed weapons were also recovered from the house of a businessman in the Kasba area of Kolkata.
(IANS)
