The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal, has now arrested Shantanu Banerjee, Youth Trinamool Congress leader from Hooghly district in this case. He was arrested after questioning for seven hours on Friday. Shantanu is also the Executive Officer of Hooghly Zilla Parishad.
Confirming his arrest, an ED official said that the arrest was decided after several discrepancies in the statement.
The ED had earlier raided Shantanu’s residence on January 20. ED sources say that the amount of the scam used to reach them as well. Some admit cards were also recovered during the search from his residence at Balagarh in Hooghly district.
An ED official told that there were many discrepancies in the details of income and expenditure given by Shantanu during interrogation. Investigation has revealed that he was close to Kuntal Ghosh and Tapas Mandal arrested in this scam. On Friday, the ED called Shantanu for questioning by taking details of income and expenditure.
ED sources told that it was through Shantanu that Tapas Mandal and Kuntal Ghosh were introduced. A list of 300 candidates was also found during the search from Shantanu’s house. He was questioned about this earlier as well.
Shantanu’s name came to the fore only after the arrest of Youth Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh of Hooghly district in this scam.
However, Kuntal claims that he does not know Shantanu. But ED officials say that Kuntal and Shantanu are involved in the recruitment scam since 2014. Both of them are also partners in a firm producing short films.
