GG News Bureau
Kolkata, 8th September. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided and searched multiple residences of West Bengal Law Minister Malaya Ghatak in Kolkata and Asansol on Wednesday in connection with the multi-crore coal smuggling scam in West Bengal.
Separate CBI teams, escorted by central armed forces personnel, raided five Ghatak residences, three in Asansol, and two in Kolkata. Ghatak’s residence in Kolkata is in a residential complex adjacent to the Governor House in central Kolkata that is exclusively reserved for state government ministers.
In addition, a fifth CBI team raided and searched the home of Ghatak’s chartered accountant, Pratik Diwan, in Alipore, South Kolkata, at a residential complex called Shyam Vatika. CBI sources said that the Diwan family is traditionally involved in the garments trading business, while Pratik Diwan is a practicing chartered accountant.
Another CBI team conducted a parallel raid and search operation at Ghatak’s Lake Gardens residence in South Kolkata, which is residence to the minister’s son and daughter-in-law.
Ghatak was summoned several times for questioning in the coal scam by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel investigation. Ghatak, an elected Trinamool Congress legislator from Asansol (North), a coal-smuggling hotspot, evaded all but one of these summonses.
The ED summoned Ghatak to the central agency’s headquarters in New Delhi in July of this year. But he ignored the summons. He is scheduled to appear at the ED’s New Delhi office again on September 14th. Malay Ghatak, the accused minister, has claimed that the central agency has searched his residences in order to defame him.
He told a press conference in Kolkata this evening that the investigators spent nearly seven hours going over all of the documents. Such incidents should not occur in order to defame anyone.
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