Mamata Banerjee files FIRs against Enforcement Directorate, CAPF after raids on I-PAC, its chief Pratik Jain

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. (Expres Photo/Partha Paul)

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed two First Information Reports (FIR) against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the wake of the raids on political consultancy and election management company I-PAC’s office in Kolkata on Thursday.

The ED had searched 10 premises associated with I-PAC, six in Kolkata and four in Delhi, including the residence of its director Pratik Jain, in connection with a money laundering case linked to the coal smuggling scam. In a statement, the agency said proceeds of the scam, amounting to crores, were sent to I-PAC through hawala channels.

According to sources with the state administration, Banjeree filed one complaint at the Bidhannagar police commissionerate, where the I-PAC office is situated, and another at the Kolkata police commissionerate where Jain’s residence is situated.

Police sources said both FIRs were filed under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 3(5) (criminal act), 303(2) (theft) and 332(c) (house-trespass), besides Section 66 of the IT Act. As per the law, offences under Section 66 of the IT Act should be investigated by an inspector-rank police officer. Inspector Shibaditya Pal was deputed to investigate the FIR lodged at the Kolkata police commissionerate.

In addition to this, the Kolkata police suo motu filed an FIR against the ED and CAPF on charges of trespassing, criminal intimidation, etc. After this, Pratik Jain’s family was unable to file another FIR against the ED and CAPF. However, the chief minister lodged the FIR instead.

The ED’s searches in Kolkata covered I-PAC’s office on the 11th floor of a building in Salt Lake, the Loudon Street residence of Jain, and the office of a trader in Posta, Burrabazar. Soon after the raid, Banerjee reached Jain’s residence and allegedly took some files, laptops and documents. Then she rushed to I-PAC’s office at Sector V in Salt Lake. “Such a raid on our party office is a crime. I-PAC is our authorised team. We do file income tax. In the name of the raids, they transferred information on our election details, strategy, candidate list and SIR details,” she said on Thursday.

Banerjee alleged that voter names were being deleted in West Bengal during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, linking the move to the election process. “Is it the duty of the ED and Amit Shah to collect the party’s hard disk, candidate list?… The nasty home minister, who cannot protect the country, is taking away all my party’s documents,” Banerjee said.

Targeting the BJP, she added, “I have never seen such dacoits… They snatched our election strategy. They looted all our documents… They can’t fight with us politically, now they are looting.”