An Enforcement Directorate (ED) team has detained West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick in relation to a suspected case of corruption in rations distribution.
“I am the victim of a grave conspiracy,” he said as he was led from his Salt Lake residence, according to ANI.
The arrest happened a day after the ED searched Mallick’s Salt Lake, Kolkata, house.
As he was led away by Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel and ED investigators, the minister declared himself to be the “victim of a grave conspiracy” while a throng of reporters surrounded him.
“West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick has been arrested by ED in connection with an alleged case of corruption in rationing distribution,” ANI quoted the agency as stating in an official release.
In relation to a suspected incidence of corruption in the distribution of rations, the ED has been conducting searches.
Mallick held the role for the Department of Food and Civil Supplies before being the state minister for Forest Affairs.
The TMC supremo, Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, has not yet commented on the arrest of one of its ministers.
The Education Department (ED) detained former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and his partner Arpita Mukherjee earlier in 2023 in connection with the teachers’ recruitment fraud after big sums of cash were found at their flat.
The ED claims that both are the subject of an investigation into the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment a scam.
Anubrata Mondal, the TMC’s Burbhum district president, has previously been arrested in connection with a cattle smuggling case.
Abhishek Banerjee, the heavyweight leader of the TMC and nephew of the chief minister, has also been called in and interrogated by the ED multiple times on an alleged coal “scam.”
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