Linked scams: Wife of middleman arrested in WBSSC scam summoned by CBI in cattle case

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is in the process of establishing links between two much-talked-about financial embezzlement scams in West Bengal -- the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment irregularities and the cattle smuggling case.

The CBI officials on Friday summoned for questioning one Kajal Roy and one Rohit Singh in connection with the cattle smuggling scam. Incidentally, the CBI sources said that while Kajal Roy is the wife of Prasanna Roy, the middleman arrested by the central agency sleuths in the WBSSC scam, Rohit Singh is one of his cousins. Kajal Roy also happens to be the niece of former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee, who is currently in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the WBSSC scam.

To recall, the CBI sleuths, on August 27 this year, arrested Prasanna Roy. CBI sources said that during the course of investigation in the cattle smuggling scam, their officers have come across a number of shell companies, which were floated with the purpose of diverting scam proceeds to different channels. "After thoroughly examining different documents and papers of these companies, the involvement of Kajal Roy and Rohit Singh in these entities evolved," a CBI official said.

After his arrest in August, the CBI sleuths were surprised by the meteoric northward graph of Roy's financial fortune between 2014 and 2018, the time slot when the teachers' recruitment scam took place.

He started as a small-time house painting contractor and slowly extended his business in other spheres like holiday resorts and even tea gardens in north Bengal. However, the sources of the funds through which Roy funded his businesses were highly mysterious. The CBI sleuths then procured documents relating to his ownership of a number of flats in and around Kolkata.

Roy also used to run a car-rental business and his major clients on this count were a number of top officials of WBSSC, some of whom are currently in judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the teacher's recruitment scam.

He also used to pose as a representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO as well as the "International Peoples' Alliance of the World" in the social media.

Besides, Roy claimed to be the chief financial advisor to World Hindu Struggle Committee, a self-styled organisation claiming to be a dedicated international team fighting to raise its voice against fundamentalism, terrorism, and inhuman groups.