Kolkata, Jan 12 – Fresh Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids on Friday at the premises of a West Bengal Minister, Trinamool Congress legislator and a ruling party councilor in connection with the multi-crore municipalities’ job case, were prompted by some code words mentioned in the personal diary of an arrested middleman.
According to informed sources, the crucial evidence was discovered for the first while ED officials had raided the residence of arrested middleman Ayan Sil last year in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school-job case.
The evidence included Sil’s personal diarywhere several initials and code words were inscribed against certain numbers, which the probe agency believed were portions of alleged scam proceeds paid as commissions.
Two specific code names — SB and Tapas da — caught the attention of the ED officials, which prompted the fresh raids on Friday.
The diary also contained some other details, including the amounts were fixed for what category of jobs in these municipalities, majority of which were in North 24 Parganas district.
The ED had recently completed the process of compiling the details of at least 2,000 such recruitment irregularities cases in these municipalities and on the basis of such compilations, the central agency sleuths had also been able to draw out a rough calculation of an estimated financial involvement in the scam.
Drawing an average financial involvement of Rs 5 lakh behind each irregular recruitment, the probe agency believes that the total financial involvement is around Rs 100 crore.
According to the ED findings, so far the municipalities’ recruitment irregularities had been mainly for lower ranks posts like drivers, clerks, lower grade computers operators and base-workers. among others.
src/ksk
