West Bengal: Marathon ED raids continue on minister Sujit Bose's properties

After almost 11 hours of a marathon raid that began a little before 8.00 am on Friday, a team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials left the residence of veteran Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Tapas Roy at around 6.30 pm.

However, simultaneous raid and search operations at the two residences of West Bengal fire services minister Sujit Bose in northern Kolkata's Lake Town area continued late into Friday evening.

In the midst of the raids, some ED personnel came out of the minister's residence in the afternoon with the minister’s son Samudra Bose and went to a nearby office of the minister for search operations there. However, that team came back to the residence with the son soon after and continued with the original search.

While one team of ED personnel was conducting raid and search operations, sources in the knowhow of things said the minister was facing marathon questioning from the central agency officials about his assets and property.

The sources also said ED officials left Roy's residence along with some documents and the personal mobile of the MLA. Roy himself confirmed the confiscation of his mobile phone while speaking to media persons. He, however, claimed that the central agency officials had not found anything substantial against him in the course of the raid and search.

The fresh ED action on Friday was in relation to the investigation into the multi-crore municipalities’ recruitment case in West Bengal.

Bose had also been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in August 2023 in relation to the same case, which he had evaded.

However, according to observers, the raid and search operations at Roy’s residence was a matter of surprise since despite being known for his controversial comments fuelling infighting within TMC, Roy’s name has never been dragged into any kind of controversy relating to financial irregularities.