West Bengal: ED arrests close aide of imprisoned TMC leader Santanu Banerjee

Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday arrested Ayan Sil, close aide of arrested TMC leader Santanu Banerjee.

After presenting Sil to the city session court, ED claimed that they have got ‘gold mine’ in the West Bengal recruitment scam.

The central agency had conducted a search operation for 37 hours at Ayan Sil, a construction promoter’s office and residence and also questioned him.

“During the course of statement dated 17.03.2023 of Santanu Banerjee recorded under section 50 of PMLA it is revealed that Ayan Seal had collected huge amount from candidates in the name of providing jobs to the posts of teachers in TET 2012 & TET-2014 and gave such collected amounts to Kuntal Ghosh and other agent(s) for getting them appointed through Partha Chatterjee, the then Education Minister of West Bengal,” read the communiqué of the central agency.

The central agency also recovered several documents related to recruitment in municipalities from his office. After questioning him about the presence of documents related to government job recruitment in his office, the ED claimed that they didn’t get any satisfactory reply.

“The search was conducted at the office of M/s ABS Infozon Pvt. Ltd. Resulted in seizure of incriminating documents such as documents of candidates which are believed to be referred by Kuntal Ghosh for selection in various exams and duly filled OMR sheets of candidates for examination of Mazdoor, typist etc. The recovered documents also disclose collection and distribution of a huge amount of ill-gotten money of more than Rs. 50 crores,” read the ED’s communiqué.

“The investigation reveals that Sh. Ayan Sil was not only involved in the illegal collection of funds from the candidates for the TET Exam but he was also running a well-oiled racket for giving jobs to ineligible candidates for various posts in various municipalities of West Bengal by manipulating their OMR sheets in connivance with high ranked officials and prominent persons,” further read the communication released by the central agency.

Meanwhile, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Mayor Firhad Hakim said, “I heard some documents of recruitment scam in Municipality of 2006 (during Left Front regime) were also recovered. I am not sure but I have heard. After getting the details a lawyer from our side will be hired.”