The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday got 10-day custody of Trinamool Congress minister Anubrata Mondal, who was arrested by the central agency this morning in a cattle smuggling case in West Bengal.
Mandal, a close aide of Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee, was arrested by a CBI team that reached Birbhum district president’s house in the early hours of Thursday after an hour-long interrogation.
A special court in Asansol granted 10 days custody to the Birbhum candidate despite the CBI praying for 14 days’ custody.
Outside the Asansol court where he was produced, an angry mob raised slogans of ‘chor, chor’. People gathered outside the court were seen throwing shoes and shouting anti-Mandal slogans.
The CBI had on Tuesday summoned Mandal to come to the city office for questioning in connection with its probe. Mandal had visited the city on Monday, but instead of going to the CBI office, went to the SSKM hospital for a check-up.
The doctors at the government medical facility had advised him to come back after two months saying that he had only a few chronic ailments. After that the TMC leaders directly left for their residence in Bolpur. He has been questioned twice so far by the central agency, which had also conducted raids at various places in the district in connection with the case in recent days. The investigating agency has also arrested Mandal’s bodyguard Sehgal Hussain.
The TMC leader, who is often in the news for his outspoken remarks on various issues, has been asked by the CBI to appear before it on several occasions in connection with its probe into the cattle scam. In the past too, Mandal had dropped the summons citing ill health.