Mamta's nephew and his wife arrested in money laundering case

New Delhi: The ED has issued summons to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife to be summoned in the state in a money laundering case. Abhishek Banerjee, 33, has won the Diamond Harbor seat in the Lok Sabha and is also the party's national general secretary.

Abhishek Banerjee has been summoned to appear before the investigating officer on September 6 in connection with the alleged coal scam in the state. His wife Rujira has been summoned to appear on September 1. IPS officers and some lawyers attached to Abhishek Banerjee have also been summoned to appear in the same case on different dates next month, officials said.

The case has been registered under PMLL. The case has been registered under the PMLA after studying the FIR filed by the CBI in November 2020 in a multi-crore coal scam in mines associated with Eastern Coalfields Limited. The mine is located in Kunnustoria and Kajora and Asansol areas of the state.

Sruthanik call operative Anup Maji alias Lala is the main accused in the case. The ED had earlier claimed that the main beneficiary of the illicit trade was Abhishek Banerjee. He denied all the allegations. The agency has made two arrests in the case. One of the arrested is Vikas Mishra, the brother of Vinay Mishra, the youth wing of the TMC.

Vinay Mishra is believed to have recently left the country and is also said to have renounced Indian citizenship. The other person is Ashok Kumar Mishra, a former in-charge of Bankura police station. The ED claims that the Mishra brothers got Rs 730 crore for committing the crime by influential persons and with that the estimated amount of the scam in this case is Rs 1,352 crore.