CALCULATED,
THE assets of some of the eight Indian Police Service (IPS) and five Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers from West Bengal, who were summoned by the Law Enforcement (ED) Directorate in New Delhi for questioning in the coal smuggling case, are under Central Agency’s scanner.
ED sources said these officers were summoned when their names surfaced during the various rounds of interrogation of charcoal smuggling ringleader Anup Majhi alias Lala who is currently in ED custody. . All these IAS and IPS officers were invited to visit the ED headquarters in New Delhi on different dates from August 21 to 31. The sources said that some of the bureaucrats and police officers will be questioned about their assets and will be asked to clarify the source of income for the purchase of those assets.
One of the important IPS officers summoned by the ED in this regard is the additional Director General of CID and State Police Special Task Force (STF), Gyanwant Singh, who will face the second central agency detectives interrogation tour in this link.
The likely question for Rajeev Mishra, the additional director general of the state intelligence branch, would be whether there was any coal smuggling intelligence input into this case. Sukesh Kumar Jain, currently deputy inspector general of the traffic division, would be questioned on how the traffic department was completely unaware that smuggled coal was being transported by trucks on national highways.
The ED has already interviewed Trinamool National Congress General Secretary and party MP Abhishek Banerjee (nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee) and his wife Rujira in connection with the case.
A Thailand-based bank account allegedly held by Rujira is currently under ED scanner.
