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By Rajesh Saha: Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) rushed to West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district on Tuesday following information that some crucial government documents were burnt. The sleuths of the CBI scrambled through the remains of documents and tried to extinguish the fire on an abandoned piece of land in the Andul Garia area of Bhandar.
This comes at a time when the CBI is probing multiple cases of irregularities, including the multi-crore jobs scam, in the TMC-ruled state. The central agency is trying to find out the reason why these government documents were set on fire.
On Tuesday morning, villagers of Andul Garia area suddenly noticed fire on the land and found many government documents were burning. A preliminary investigation by the CBI revealed that those papers are related to mining businesses in several areas of neighbouring Bihar.
DOCUMENTS RELATED TO BIHAR GOVT
Most of the burnt documents were related to the Bihar government and huge money receipts, files, project reports, cash memos, balance sheets were also recovered.
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The investigation revealed that a pilot, working with the Indian Air Force, sold this piece of land to Rajesh Singh, a resident of Bihar. The agency called one of the team leaders of the local village, Rakesh Adhikari, and also questioned him.
“Getting information that documents were being burnt in Bhangar, some of our officers went there and collected some partially burnt papers. Going by the initial look, it seems that they belong to mining affairs in Bihar,” a CBI officer told PTI.
The CBI questioned Rakesh Adhikari regarding the land under his jurisdiction. According to sources, he was also asked if he knew former education Minister Partha Chatterjee or any other persons arrested in the education scam.
The CBI then summoned the owner of the land, Rajesh Singh, to Nizam Palace, the CBI office in Kolkata.
Asked if some of the documents are related to the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal, the officer told PTI, “It does not appear so. This is, however, an initial observation. We need to examine more. We will also test them chemically to have a clear idea.”
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WHAT ARE THE LOCALS SAYING?
According to sources, locals claimed that a few influential local leaders brought all those papers to the land and put fire on them. It has also been alleged that these leaders are close to Partha Chatterjee, who is in ED custody in jobs scam. But Rakesh Adhikari, also the deputy chief of the local panchayat, denied all these allegations.
Locals also claimed that this is not the first time that government papers have been burnt. For the past two days, government documents have been burnt on the same land which is owned by Rajesh Singh.
Currently, the major financial scams on which central agencies like CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are conducting probes include irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non- teaching staff in state-run schools, cattle smuggling and coal smuggling.
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