After CBI, ED to question Trinamool's Anubrata Mondal in cattle smuggling case

The financial probe agency had earlier lodged a money laundering case against the Trinamool strongman in connection with the Bengal cattle smuggling case.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to request a designated Kolkata court to allow its officials to question Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal in the cattle smuggling case, sources told India Today TV. Mondal has been in jail since his arrest on August 11 by the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, in the same case.

The financial probe agency had earlier lodged a money laundering case against the Trinamool strongman. It now wants to question Mondal to establish the money trail, the sources added.

On August 11, the CBI rolled in to Mondal’s Bolpur home in Birbhum district in a convoy of 30 cars. The officials locked and questioned him for over one-and-a-half hours before picking him up from his home turf. A massive crowd gathered outside as the Bengal chief minister’s close aide was whisked away by the probe agency. This came just days after the now-expelled Trinamool veteran and former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in the Bengal teachers’ job scam.

Also Read: | Who is Anubrata Mondal, arrested in cattle smuggling case in Bengal?

The CBI, which had registered an FIR against Mondal in 2020, summoned the TMC leader 10 times before picking him up from his home. Mondal had been skipping the summons, citing health issues.

He was earlier questioned twice by the central agency as part of its investigation into the cattle smuggling case.

According to the CBI, between 2015 and 2017, over 20,000 cattle heads were seized by the Border Security Force while they were being smuggled across the border.