The West Bengal government told a Birbhum court on Thursday that the gold bars seized by police from the home of retired state bus driver, Md Minar Mondal, were smuggled from Switzerland, Dubai and Malaysia, officials said.
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Tulu Mondal was arrested in a murder case by the Birbhum police in 2022 but was released on bail. He was also interrogated by federal agencies several times for his suspected connection with illegal stone, sand and coal trade.
During back-to-back raids on Thursday, police entered one of Tulu Mondal’s properties in Birbhum’s Siuri town and seized ₹12 lakh in cash and 270 grams of gold. In another raid, a large number of files and financial records were found from a vehicle kept at Mondal’s farmhouse in Karidhya village.
Chatterjee told the court that Tulu Mondal accumulated the wealth by siphoning a major chunk of the revenue collected from stone and sand quarry operators in Birbhum.
Minar Mondal’s wife, Kabira Khatun, told reporters that her cousin Tulu Mondal came to her home and left a large cabinet where the money and the gold were kept.
“He said it contained documents and we had nothing to worry about. The cabinet was locked. The police broke the cabinet open. We live on my husband’s pension,” Khatun said.
The recovery has brought Birbhum’s heavyweight Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal under focus as Tulu Mondal was known to be one of his old aides.
Anubrata Mondal, who spent two years in judicial custody at Delhi’s Tihar jail as a prime accused in the cattle smuggling case, on July 15 attacked TMC national general secretary Abhishek Baerjee.
“I went to jail because of Abhishek. The government’s revenue earnings from the stone quarries in Birbhum came down from ₹3.5 crore to ₹65 lakh a day,” Mondal said on July 15. The Mamata Banerjee faction of the TMC has not spoken on the allegation.
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Police seized the gold and ₹28.5 crore in cash during the raid at Mondal’s home in Deucha village in the Muhammad Bazar area.
Bengal’s special public prosecutor Bibhas Chatterjee told the court that Md Minar Mondal was the custodian of the valuables on behalf of his wife’s cousin, Md Nazibuddin alias Tulu Mondal.
The court remanded Md Minar Mondal in police custody for eight days and issued an arrest warrant against Tulu Mondal, who is suspected of purchasing numerous properties in Birbhum, Kolkata and Dubai.
“Md Nazibuddin kept the gold and the money in Minar Mondal’s home and made him the custodian before absconding. Md Nazibuddin’s movements since May 23 have been detected. The administration is on the job. The markings on the gold bars, most of which weigh a kilo, show that these came from Switzerland, Malaysia, and Dubai,” Chatterjee told HT after the court hearing.
Birbhum superintendent of police (SP) Vidit Raj Bhundesh said, “We have filed a case under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita including Section 111 which deals with organised crime.”
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Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari told the state assembly on July 23 that the revenue stolen in Birbhum district was sent to Dubai via Kolkata’s Camac Street. Abhishek Banerjee, whose office is located on Camac Street, has not commented on the allegation.
In his speech, Adhikari told the assembly, ”The revenue from stone and sand in Birbhum used to be ₹65 crore a year. We collected ₹82 crore in the first month after coming to power. During the former regime, the actual annual revenue was ₹1200 crore but only ₹100 crore reached the state exchequer. The remaining ₹1100 crore went to Dubai via Carac Street”.
