Kolkata: Describing the allegations that his wife Rujira Narula was caught at the Kolkata airport for carrying 2 kg gold in her check-in baggage as “baseless”, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee said on Sunday that the complaint filed by the Customs authorities alleging interference and obstruction by the local police was drafted in Delhi and was “highly politically motivated”.
The Lok Sabha member from Diamond Harbour held a marathon presser on Sunday where he declared that he was “open to any form of investigation” to unearth the truth.
Challenging the Customs authorities to prove that his wife was carrying even two grams of gold when she reached the Kolkata airport from Bangkok on the intervening night of March 15 and 16, Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said that he would quit politics if there was any wrongdoing on his wife’s part.
In an aggressive tone, Banerjee repeatedly used the word “I challenge” as he targeted the Customs authorities, the opposition and some right wing portals carrying the reports of the incident. He also threatened to slap criminal and civil defamation suits against some opposition leaders twitting on the issue.
Banerjee said his wife also filed a police complaint on March 16 against the way she was “harassed and heckled” by the Customs officials, which has later been converted into an FIR as per a court directive following a preliminary enquiry. He shot five questions to the Customs authorities and claimed that the complaint filed by the department on March 22 had a covering letter marked “secret” from the Commissioner of Customs (airport and administration) Manish Chandra.
Referring to para 2 of the covering letter, Banerjee said it was clearly written that “this (filing of the complaint) is as per the instructions of CBIC, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi” and that the FIR to be filed was enclosed. “This shows that the person filing the complaint, Assistant Commissioner of Customs S.K. Biswas, had not written the complaint himself,” Banerjee said.
