The Central Bureau of Investigation has submitted before a designated court a property list of arrested Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal that could run into hundreds of crores, inside sources say.
Mondal a TMC national executive committee member and Birbhum district party president ill-famed for terrorising speeches like publicly asking his party men to bomb police vehicles, torch opposition houses was on Thursday picked up by the CBI officials who raided his Bolpur residence with a posse of one hundred CPF personnel. He has been arrested in connection to multi-crore cattle smuggling case.
According to sources the CBI has submitted before the court a list of 59 documents pertaining to his properties through out Birbhum, Burdwan and other parts of the State. Many of these properties are in the names of his wife and daughter. This, in excess of the documents of property worth about Rs 100 crore found from his personal security guard and a police constable Shegal Hussein.
Among the properties owned by Mondal are 16 rice mills partially or fully owned by the leader in Burdwan and Birbhum districts sources said adding shares in most of these mills were forcefully extracted from the owners.
CBI sources claim that Mondal also owns six ‘Benami’ petrol pumps about 30 sand fields. This in excess of about a hundred of illegal sand queries. Apart from sand fields he also owns stone queries and a number of stone crushing units, sources say. The TMC leader known for his proximity to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also owns about one hundred dumpers (acquired through Benami route) used to transport sand.
According to sources the TMC strongman often called the uncrowned king of Birbhum that also houses Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantiniketan (about a stone’s throw from his residence) owns a medical college and a number of hotels, bungalows, farmhouses in benami, sources claimed.
The CBI has also informed that cattle money was remitted to Mondal from the prime accused and arrested cattle trader Enamul Haq through a number of channels. Firstly the Birbhum leader got a fat Rs 20 crore yearly from Haq as protection money. The second channel through which money flowed was manned by Shegal Hussein and the third channel of the ill-gotten money was routed to lesser leaders. A recent raid in three of such leaders’ houses fetched Rs 17 lakh, and a number of documents leading to Mondal sources said.
