Cattle smuggling case: ED attaches properties of Anubrata, Sukanya Mondal

Kolkata: As part of its probe into the alleged multi-crore cattle smuggling case in West Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has frozen multiple bank accounts and attached high-value properties of Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal and his daughter Sukanya Mondal.

Sources said on Wednesday that a total of 25 bank accounts have been frozen and property worth Rs 11 crore attached. Some of these properties were in the name of Anubrata Mondal, while others were in the names of his deceased wife Late Chobi Mondal and daughter Sukanya Mondal.

The father and the daughter are currently serving judicial custody at Tihar Jail in New Delhi for their alleged involvement in the scam.

The 25 bank accounts seized by the ED include personal bank accounts of Mondal and his family members and those with the companies like ANM Agrochem Foods Private Limited and Neer Developer Private Limited where Sukanya Mondal was a director.

Even a couple of accounts in the names of rice-mills, where she was a partner, have been confiscated.

This is the second time that ED had gone for freezing of bank accounts and attachment properties of Mondal and his family members. In the first phase the central agency sleuths had attached properties worth Rs 17 crore. So in all, property of Rs 28 crore have been attached by ED in two phases.

However, one thing that is keeping the ED officials perplexed is that despite such attachment of properties and blocking the channels of fund supply, where is the fund for meeting the huge legal expenses coming from. ED sleuths are also trying to identify those channels of fund supply.

ED sources said that only Mondal's ancestral house at Bolpur in Birbhum district has been kept untouched since other relatives, who do not have any reported connection with the cattle case, too have shares in that property.