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CBI summons six Bengal police officials in cattle-smuggling, illegal coal mining cases

Reportedly, the DGP and inspector ranker officers have been asked to appear before CBI at its Nizam Palace office in Kolkata this week.

CBI summons six Bengal police officials in cattle-smuggling, illegal coal mining cases

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) (Photo: Twitter)

The CBI on Tuesday summoned six West Bengal police officials in the ongoing investigation of the cattle-smuggling and illegal coal mining cases.

Reportedly, the DGP and inspector ranker officers have been asked to appear before the central agency at its Nizam Palace office in Kolkata this week.

It had been reported earlier that the CBI was speculating role governement officials in an organised racket behind the cattle-smuggling case and coal-mining scam.

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The CBI had done a preliminary enquiry which showed that cattle smuggling was rampant along the India-Bangladesh border which is allegedly aided by some corrupt officers of the BSF and Customs receiving illegal gratification from smugglers, they said.

The agency has gone full steam on the cases related to West Bengal with Director RK Shukla asking the team probing Saradha and related ponzi scam to complete filing of all the FIRs before January, 2021.

Last week, the CBI carried out searches at the properties of Trinamool Congress youth wing leader Vinay Mishra.

He is considered close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, PTI reported the agency as saying.

The investigation agency carried out search operations at three locations related to the TMC youth leader – at his homes in south Kolkata’s Rashbehari and Behala and his office at Lake Town in the eastern fringe of the city.

The Income Tax department had also raided his office and flats last week. The agencies are also investigating if Mishra had any link with the coal-smuggling case as the CBI also conducted search operations related to it on Thursday.

After arresting a BSF officer Satish Kumar and businessman Enamul Haque, CBI had reportedly come to know about Mishra, who enjoys Z-Category security from the state governement.

The raids in connection with coal corruption were run in West Bengal’s Hooghly district. The agency also had a search operation at Howrah’s Slakia and North 24 Parganas’ Konnangar.

The agency issued a look out circular (LOC) against Mishra, sources said, as the TMC Youth Congress General Secretary is missing.

In November last year, the CBI had raided 45 locations across West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar relating to illegal mining and theft of coal from Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL). The agency alleges a large scale corruption in ECL with the involvement of security and railway officials.

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