CBI finally questions TMC leader in cattle smuggling case. He kept them waiting for 13 months

KOLKATA: : Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal on Thursday finally turned up at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office in the state capital Kolkata for questioning in the cattle smuggling case, but the session was wrapped up early because Mondal said, he has a doctor’s appointment.

This was Mondol’s first appearance before CBI officers in the cattle smuggling case in 13 months. The agency issued its first summon to the TMC Birbhum district president in April 2021 ahead of the Bengal elections.

Mamata Banerjee had then linked the CBI summons to state elections. “Kesto (Mondal’s nickname) is kept under surveillance during every election. They do not let him move freely. Two CBI officers went to his house in Bolpur yesterday and asked him to appear before the agency on April 27. Why will he go when the elections are on?” she told a meeting.

But Mondal did not show up after the elections either, usually citing his health.

On Thursday, Mondal walked into the CBI office at Nizam Palace with his lawyer Sanjib Daw at 10.30am and told officials that he will have to leave early because of an appointment with doctors at the state-run SSKM hospital. He was allowed to go around 1.50 pm.

Mondal was grilled on Thursday afternoon for two hours in the presence of joint director Pankaj Srivastava who flew down from Delhi.

As he got into his car at the Nizam Palace office, Mondal kept his right hand on his chest and walked with the support of his security personnel. “I am not feeling well,” he told reporters.

He reached the hospital around 2pm and underwent some checkups, hospital doctors said.

Officers at Kolkata’s CBI office said he will be summoned again.

“His written statement was recorded… Mondal was questioned on the cattle smuggling that has taken place in Birbhum district over several years. The proceeds went to influential people, according to the probe,” a CBI official said on condition of anonymity.

To be sure, Mondal was summoned as a witness under section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and not an accused in the cattle smuggling case in which several officers of the West Bengal Police, the Border Security Force and the Customs department are the accused. Mondal did approach courts on multiple occasions in this regard.

His decision to appear for questioning comes weeks after the Calcutta high court’s division bench rejected his appeal for protection against arrest in the cattle smuggling case

Two BSF officers and a state police inspector have been arrested in the case. According to the CBI’s first information report (FIR) registered in 2018, cattle seized by BSF were undervalued and auctioned with the help of some customs officers so that traders could buy these at very low prices and legally sell them again in Bangladesh. Part of the sale proceeds allegedly went to some TMC leaders and government officers, CBI officers said.

While chief minister Mamata Banerjee earlier claimed that her party leaders are being harassed by CBI, the TMC leadership distanced the party from Anubrata Mondal in April.

Kunal Ghosh, the party’s state general secretary, said last month that even the chief minister’s nephew and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee hadn’t hesitated to appear before central agencies in the coal smuggling case in which he is a suspect.

The 2018 probe into cattle smuggling gained pace following the arrest of Muhammad Enamul Haque, one of the prime accused, by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Delhi on February 18.

Haque, who was arrested by the CBI in November 2020, was released on bail after he moved the Supreme Court. He was named in a CBI charge sheet filed at the Asansol court in West Burdwan district in 2021.

CBI and ED are conducting parallel probes into cattle smuggling that took place for several years along the Bangladesh border.