The officers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized clones of several computer hard discs, documents and other related things after conducting marathon search operations in the three medical college hospitals in Durgapur of West Burdwan district, one in Bolpur of Birbhum district along with the residences of their owners in Bolpur, Durgapur and Salt Lake in Kolkata.

Sources said that the Enforcement Department (ED) is not only probing the alleged irregularities in the admission of the MBBS students under the NRI quota but also any connections related to the cross-border cattle smuggling case and coal smuggling cases and other political connections.

Advertisement

Incidentally, the name of a private medical college hospital surfaced during the investigations of the illegal coal theft scam in Raniganj coalfield area of ECL and amounting to Rs 1,300 crore, in which CBI is all set to frame charges in the court this month.

While, both the Enforcement Department (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) have grilled several times Malay Pit, the owner of a medical college hospital in Bolpur and a very close associate of TMC former district president Anubrata Mondal in the cross-border cattle smuggling case. However, none of the central agencies have arrested him in that case so far, in which all the other accused have been released on bail including Anubrata Mondal.

Though the ED has not issued any official statements on these raids conducted yesterday, the marathon raids were also conducted in the houses of Partha Pobi and Randendranath Mukherjee, owners of two private medical colleges in Malandighi and Rajbandh near Durgapur.

None of these private medical colleges have so far released any official statements on this issue till the time of reporting today.

The ED raid on the private medical colleges in the state has created a political stir in West Bengal.