After five weeks, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today carried out another raid at the residence of a police officer in Durgapur, seizing substantial documents linked to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The officer, Monoranjan Mondal of the Special Branch, Asansol-Durgapur Police Commissionerate, has been absconding and repeatedly ignored ED notices for interrogation for over a month. A seven-member team of officials affixed a summons to the gate of his house in the City Centre locality and left after six hours.
The ED has directed Mondal to appear at its Kolkata regional headquarters on 13 March at 12.30 p.m. with details of all entities owned by him and his family, complete bank transaction records, and copies of his income tax returns.
On 3 February, the ED raided Mondal’s residence within a week of his appointment as Officer-in-Charge of Budbud police station under the Commissionerate. He was absent during that raid as well. Mondal is accused of large-scale pilferage and trafficking of national resources such as coal and sand during his tenure as Officer-in-Charge of Barabani police station near Asansol.
The ED also acted against Mondal and sand mafia Prabir Dutta at City Centre on 3 February, alongside raids at several other locations in Jamuria, Panagarh and Pandaveswar in West Burdwan, linked to illegal coal and sand mining.
Sources said officials seized cash worth more than Rs 70 lakh, packed in three gunny bags, from the house of brothers Amit and Sumit Bansal in Jamuria Hattalla Morh. The brothers were allegedly involved in transferring proceeds from illegal mining through hawala channels to remote recipients. The sleuths also raided the homes of two other traffickers ~ Kiran Khan at Bakhtiarnagar near Raniganj and Sheikh Maizul at Nabagram in Pandaveswar.
Today, the ED carried a printer device to copy documents connected to “secret unauthorised transactions” linked to trafficking.