On Thursday, January 8, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of barging into I-PAC director Pratik Jain’s Kolkata home right in the middle of a raid tied to a money laundering case involving alleged coal smuggling.
ED Accuses Mamata Banerjee of Disrupting Raid
According to the ED and PTI, Banerjee wasn’t alone; she showed up with her aides and state police, and together, they “forcibly removed key evidence, physical documents and electronic devices.”
That morning, the ED had started raiding ten locations six in West Bengal, four in Delhi at 7 am. It’s all part of an ongoing case from 2020, where CBI investigators named Anup Majhi (‘Lala’) as the head of a coal smuggling ring.
They say Lala illegally excavated coal from Eastern Coalfield’s leasehold areas near Asansol in Paschim Bardhaman.
Coal Smuggling Probe: ED Levels Serious Charges
The ED also claims that huge transactions of tens of crores were pushed through by a hawala operator connected to the smuggling, making their way to Indian PAC Consulting Pvt Ltd, better known as I-PAC, the political consultancy firm.
Officers said the search was going smoothly until Banerjee arrived with a big police team. She and her group allegedly went into Pratik Jain’s place and took away “key evidence.” The ED insists I-PAC is linked to the hawala money.
The agency also said Banerjee and the Kolkata Police commissioner’s actions disrupted the investigation and the legal process under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
ED Names Mamata Banerjee in I-PAC Raid Controversy
The ED tried to set the record straight, saying their searches were evidence-driven, not aimed at any political party. “No party office has been searched,” they said, calling it a routine anti-money laundering operation with all the proper legal steps in place, not something cooked up to target elections.
Just for context, I-PAC also runs the IT cell for the Trinamool Congress, and West Bengal’s assembly elections are coming up in the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari called Banerjee’s visit to Jain’s home during the raid both “unconstitutional and an ” interference” in the ED’s work. He told reporters that the ED should take action against the chief minister.
“I feel that the chief minister and the Kolkata police commissioner’s visit was unethical, unconstitutional and direct interference in the central agency’s investigation,” Adhikari said, right after Banerjee and the police left Jain’s Loudon Street house.
