Kolkata: Swinging into action against Trinamool Congress youth wing leader Vinay Mishra, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday carried out searches at three locations in Kolkata in connection with a cattle smuggling case, sources said.
The agency has also issued a lookout circular (LOC) against Mishra, sources said, as the TMC Youth Congress General Secretary is missing. All airports in the state have also been alerted about Mishra.
The probe agency has been on a searching spree for the last few weeks in the eastern state in connection with the alleged cross-border cattle smuggling and illegal coal mining cases.
CBI sleuths conducted raids at Mishra's residences at Rashbihari, Chetla and Lake Town areas in Kolkata. Vinay Mishra is known to be a close aide of Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Trinamool's Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour Abhishek Banerjee.
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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary (in-charge of West Bengal) Kailash Vijayvargiya took to Twitter and attacked the Mamata Banerjee-led government in Bengal over the issue.
Sources said this is the first time that a Trinamool leader's name has been linked directly to this case. Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Mishra's name purportedly cropped up several times in the course of the CBI investigation.
Besides Mishra, the CBI team also carried out raids in Hooghly district's Konnagar area on Thursday morning at the residence of Amit Singh and Niraj Singh. The duo is known as close aides of illegal coal syndicate kingpin Anup Majhi, alias Lala, sources said. The CBI officers recovered some important documents from their residence while both Amit and Niraj managed to evade the sleuths.
IANS
