Published : Sep 13, 2023, 11:59 AM IST
|Updated : Sep 13, 2023, 2:26 PM IST
Kolkata:TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday appeared before ED at its Kolkata office in connection with alleged Bengal school jobs scam, official sources said.
Notably, Abhishek was earlier scheduled to attend the coordination committee meeting of the INDIA bloc alliance in New Delhi on September 13. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the CGO complex in Salt Lake has been wrapped under a thick security blanket since early on Wednesday.
A huge police contingent led by an officer in the rank of assistant commissioner of police has been deployed to man the security outside the CGO complex. Security has been tightened within the CGO complex as well with additional central armed forces personnel being deputed there compared to that of normal working days. The authorities are also acting strictly on entry within the CGO complex and no one is allowed to enter without producing either an identity card or papers substantiating the reason for entry.
As per the information available so far, Banerjee arrived at the central agency office a little after 11.30 am. On Tuesday evening, West Bengal Irrigation and Waterways Department Minister Partha Bhowmik gave a clear indication that Banerjee would be going to the ED office instead of attending the first coordination committee meeting of the grand opposition bloc INDIA alliance at New Delhi.
"You will see tomorrow that Abhishek Banerjee is not afraid to face any kind of investigation. He is a man with a strong spine unlike the leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari," Bhowmik said on Tuesday evening. On Tuesday, ED also gave a verbal assurance to the Calcutta High Court of not adopting any coercive action against Banerjee till the final judgement on his petition to expunge his name from the central agency probe in the school job case is delivered. The final hearing in the matter is scheduled on September 19 by the Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh.
