In what is seen as a clear case of tit-for-tat, the Mamata  Government has started its own probe against State Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari in the infamous cow smuggling case, sources in the department have revealed.

According to the sources, the State CID has asked the Murshidabad district Superintendent of Police to submit reports about Adhikari’s security staff during his stint as the Trinamool Congress observer there between 2019 and 2020.

Adhikari was a senior Minister and a powerful Trinamool Congress leader —and a blue-eyed boy of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — before he left the TMC ahead of the last year’s Assembly elections to join the BJP.

Besides bordering Bangladesh, Murshidabad is adjacent to Birbhum district which houses the second biggest inland cow market in Asia. Cows from all over the country converge at Ilam Bazar in Birbhum before being transported to Murshidabad or Malda from where they are smuggled into Bangladesh.

The BJP suspected a “dirty design” in CID’s action to “falsely implicate” Adhikari in a retaliatory measure against ED and CBI actions in the State that has seen a number of TMC leaders, including Minister Partha Chatterjee, national executive member Anubrata Mondal and municipal chairman Raju Sahni landing in jail.

The CBI last month took Mondal into custody in cow smuggling case. Subsequently, the agency has dug out properties worth several crores allegedly belonging to the Birbhum TMC strongman and people close to him.

 Challenging the TMC Government to find out any evidence against him, Adhikari said, “The CID action is intended at locating the police personnel then involved in my duty so that they can be pressurised to give false evidence against me ... But I challenge the Government and Mamata Banerjee to go ahead and prove me guilty.”

 Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, the CID officials investigating a disproportionate asset case against suspended IPS officer Debashish Dhar on Sunday raided five premises related to Kolkata businessman Sudipta Roy Chowdhury who has a close relationship with Dhar.