KOLKATA/CONTAI: The Contai police on Sunday confirmed that BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari’s name figured in an FIR lodged into alleged Cyclone Yaas relief theft, on a day his aide, Rakhal Bera, was remanded in police custody over a cash-for-jobs complaint.
The developments have prompted the BJP to cry foul, with senior functionaries terming it a “conspiracy” and “politically motivated”.
The name of Adhikari, who’s also the state leader of the opposition, is one of four names in the FIR, which also mentions his brother Soumendu, a former chief of Contai Municipality.
The complaint that names the Adhikaris has been lodged by Ratnadip Manna, member, board of administrators, Contai Municipality.
Manna had lodged the complaint on June 1 alleging that around 12.30pm on May 29, tarpaulin worth Rs 2 lakh stacked at the municipality store was forcibly taken in a mini truck by illegally breaking open the locks.
This was done at the Adhikari brothers’ “directions”, the complaint alleges.
Manna claimed he, along with another board member, Sk Habibur Rahman, had accosted two people they spotted.
“We arrested one person, Pratap Dey, on Thursday.
He was remanded in three days’ police custody.
We are looking for Himangshu Manna, who is another accused,” said Contai police inspector-in-charge Amalendu Biswas.
Himangshu, sources said, was earlier responsible for the Contai municipality stores.
The police officer said the cops had not only lodged the FIR under penal sections but also sections 51 and 53 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The complaint also mentions Suvendu’s guards — all central force personnel — who were also present.
A CISF jawan, now assigned to guard Suvendu, has also been summoned for questioning.
In the cash-for-jobs complaint, Bera has been remanded in police custody till June 12 after Maniktala police pleaded in court that they needed custodial interrogation to unearth the “masterminds”.
Bera, arrested on Saturday, has been named in an FIR lodged on February 27 that claims he, along with Chanchal Nandi, had taken Rs 2 lakh promising a Group-D (field staff) post to the complainant, an Askokenagar resident, in the state irrigation department in 2019.
The FIR alleges that the duo had organised a special job camp on the premises of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics Cooperative Housing Society on Kolkata’s Maniktala Road sometime between July 2019 and September 2019.
The FIR has been lodged over criminal conspiracy, cheating and fraud (IPC sections 120B, 420, 467, 468 and 471).
Joint police commissioner V Solomon Nesakumar refused to comment, only saying a person had been arrested at 8.35pm on Saturday.
BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on Sunday said the FIRs were “a conspiracy against the BJP.” Sayantan Basu, Bengal BJP general secretary, alleged the FIRs were “politically motivated, and lodged with vested interests….
They have falsely implicated hundreds of BJP workers and tried to intimidate them.
This case is no exception,” adding, “The Contai FIR is a ridiculous allegation by a party whose own leaders had been involved in corruption over relief material during Cyclone Amphan.
The Adhikari family can never stoop so low to as to encourage stealing of plastic sheets.” None of the Adhikari brothers has commented on the issue.