Kolkata: The CBI on Thursday arrested West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal, considered a close associate of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, for allegedly not cooperating with the federal agency in connection with the cattle smuggling scam probe.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) decided to act firm after he skipped the federal investigative agency's 10th summons for interrogation, sources said.
Mondal, the controversial Birbhum district president of the TMC, had appeared before the CBI sleuths only once despite being summoned multiple times.
A large group of Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) anti-corruption unit sleuths, who had reached the sub-divisional town Bolpur in a fleet of cars on Wednesday night, on Thursday morning entered the powerful leader's house in the Nichupatty area of Ilambazar block in Birbhum and arrested him after a hour-long grilling.
A contingent of central forces had put up a ring around the house after the CBI officers entered the premises. Nobody was allowed to enter or go out of the house till the time Mondal was led out in a convoy of cars.
Mondal has been taken to the Eastern Coalfield Limited's guest house in Sheetalpur of Paschim Bardhaman district for questioning.
Sources said the central forces have virtually converted the guest house into a fortress.
It was not immediately known whether Mondal would be presented in court on Thursday or Friday.
The CBI, which is probing the cattle trafficking case to Bangladesh following a Calcutta High court directive, has accused Mondal of non-cooperation in the investigation.
Mondal is also under the CBI scanner in connection with alleged smuggling of coal and has faced a round of grilling from the premier probe agency for his purported involvement in the violence in the state after last year's Assembly polls.
Mondal, known for his repeated inciteful comments, had in 2013 asked his partymen to "bomb the police" and "burn the houses of dissident Trinamool candidates" in the panchayat elections.
In 2018, he was accused of resorting to strongarm tactics to prevent opposition candidates from filing their nominations on the Panchayat polls.
Mondal is the second prominent Trinamool leader to be arrested recently. Last month the then party secretary general and state commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee was taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged irregularities in appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff in government-aided schools during his tenure as education minister. (UNI)