Narada case: ED reminds accused about delay in submitting details of assets

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is investigating the money laundering angle in the Narada tapes scandal, has sent reminders to the accused TMC leaders and BJP's Mukul Roy to provide details of their bank accounts and other assets, agency officials said on Wednesday.

The notices were sent to them before the commencement of the lockdown in March but the information sought has not been received yet, they said.

"We have now sent reminders to them and all of them have assured that they will reply shortly," the ED sources said. The anti-money laundering probe agency has asked the accused politicians to furnish the details for the last seven years.

Apart from the ED, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also been probing the scandal.

Some of the top Trinamool Congress leaders accused in the case are West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Suvendu Adhikari, former minister Madan Mitra, Lok Sabha MPs Saugata Roy and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Subrata Mukherjee and Aparupa Poddar.

They have been interrogated by both the agencies. Sultan Ahmed, the former party MP and an accused in the case, died in September 2017.

BJP leaders Mukul Roy and Sovan Chatterjee, a former Mayor of Kolkata, also figure in the list of accused in the Narada case when they were with the TMC.

Roy joined the BJP in November 2017, while Sovan Chatterjee switched over to the saffron camp last year.

A sting operation was carried out by Mathew Samuel, the CEO of the Narada News portal, in 2014.

Some senior TMC leaders, including the two, who later switched over to the BJP, and an IPS officer were purportedly seen accepting money from the representatives of a fictitious company in return for favours.

However, the sting video footages were uploaded on the news portal before the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2016, creating a furore in the state politics.

The only person to have been arrested in the case is IPS officer S M H Mirza who was later released on bail. Mirza was the superintendent of police of Burdwan district when the sting operation was conducted.

Sources said Chatterjee, former city mayor, has already submitted the details of his bank accounts and other assets to the ED.