There was more embarrassment for the Mamata Banerjee Government even as a fresh scam tended to explode in its face with the Central Bureau of Investigation while investigating the cattle smuggling case on Thursday stumbled upon yet another scam in Suri Cooperative Bank in Birbhum district.
In the course of investigating the cattle smuggling case that has seen senior TMC leader and party strongman Anubrata Mondal going to jail, the CBI sleuths unearthed at least 160 fake accounts in the Suri branch of Cooperative Bank where a majority of the account holders are rural farmers.
The CBI officers had scanned 60 fake accounts that had accounted for more than Rs 5 crore when the reports last came in. Heavy amounts had been transacted through the accounts.
“Only one signature figures in most of these transactions,”sources said. "It is unlikely that the poor farmers who are the account holders of a cooperative bank might have transacted in so many lakhs of rupees and on several occassions," sources said adding the accounts had great chances of being linked to some big shot, perhaps some mastermind of the cattle smuggling.
The CBI officials would not comment on reports doing the rounds that the accounts had links to cattle smuggling as also the state food department. The CBI sleuths are also trying to find out whether the accounts had any link with Mondal, sources said.