NEW DELHI, July 25: The West Bengal Minister for Commerce and Industries Partha Chatterjee thrice made calls to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to inform her about his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate but all the three times calls went unanswered, official sources said on Monday.
According to the police, any accused person is allowed a call to a relative or friend to inform them about their arrest. Partha Chatterjee’s “Arrest Memo” says the 70-year-old chose his boss Mamata Banerjee for his phone call to a “relative/friend whom the person taken in custody intends to inform.”
His first call to her, after his arrest at around 1.55 am, was made at 2.33 am. “He called her but she didn’t take his call,” the memo records. Chatterjee called again at 3.37 am and 9.35 am, again without luck. Chatterjee was once one of Mamata Banerjee’s top aides, but her silence has led to speculation that he had been ignored by the Chief Minister.
Though unrelated, Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she never supported corruption or any wrongdoing. “I don’t support corruption or any wrongdoing,” the West Bengal Chief Minister said. Her statement was not linked to Chatterjee’s arrest but reflected her and the party’s stand on such issues.
But the ruling Trinamool Congress has denied the entire phone calling episode. Refuting the ED’s claims that Chatterjee’s calls to Mamata went unanswered, the party’s senior leader Firhad Hakim said there was “no question” of the arrested minister calling Mamata Banerjee as his phone was with the Enforcement Directorate.
Chatterjee, who was Education Minister of Bengal, was arrested on Saturday on money-laundering charges linked to a school jobs scam. He was accused of a role in alleged wrongdoing in the appointment of schoolteachers and teaching staff by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in government-sponsored and aided schools.
He was arrested after about Rs 20 crore in cash was found from the house of one of his close aides Arpita Mukherjee. This was among the key reasons for the minister’s arrest, said sources. The Enforcement Directorate says the minister was in contact with Ms Mukherjee and that the cash found in her home was “proceeds of crime.”
Chatterjee was hospitalised soon after he was sent to the Enforcement Directorate’s custody as he complained of uneasiness. The Enforcement Directorate approached the court saying he should be moved out of the state-run SSKM hospital in Kolkata, where he was known to assert his influence as a powerful minister.
Following the Calcutta High Court’s order to take him to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar, Chatterjee was flown to Odisha by air ambulance on Monday morning. But the AIIMS doctors after checking said though he had chronic health issues, he did not require hospitalisation. “We have conducted a thorough screening (of Chatterjee). He has some chronic diseases, but does not need immediate hospitalisation,” AIIMS executive director Ashutosh Biswas told reporters.
(Manas Dasgupta)