ED Arrests TMC Leader And Brother In Rs 10,000 Crore West Bengal Ration Scam

The central agency interrogated Anisur Rahman and Alif Noor for approximately 15 hours before proceeding with the arrests. Both are scheduled to be presented before the Bankshal Court in Kolkata today.

The brothers were summoned to the ED's Kolkata office on Thursday morning following a raid on their residence on Tuesday. The ED teams had conducted searches at the homes of Sheikh Shahjahan, Bakibur Rahman, Anisur Rahman, and Barik Biswas, all close associates of the imprisoned former minister Jyotipriya Mallick.

The brothers appeared before the investigating officer at the CGO Complex in Kolkata. They were arrested for allegedly failing to cooperate with the investigation and providing inconsistent statements during multiple interrogations.

ED sources revealed that the officers were dissatisfied with the brothers' responses during questioning. The agency identified multiple illegal transactions that the brothers could not satisfactorily explain. Additionally, they failed to adequately account for the financial transactions, income, and expenditures of their rice mills. After 15 hours of interrogation, the ED arrested them under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the Bengal ration scam.

The ED previously estimated that the scam involving West Bengal's public distribution system (PDS) amounted to at least Rs 10,000 crore.