Bengal soil theft case: Abhishek Banerjee’s aide now shown ‘arrested’

Kolkata, Oct 28 (IANS) Sumit Roy, the executive assistant of Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee, on Wednesday, was shown as arrested by the Diamond District Police in soil theft case. Roy is already serving judicial custody after he was arrested on September 10 this year by the sleuths of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police, in connection with a multi-crore illegal land-grabbing case at Salboni in West Midnapore district of West Bengal. With the Diamond Harbour Police showing him as arrested in a new case, political observers feel that additional pressure has started mounting both on him as well as his political bosses. Roy had been shown as arrested by the Diamond Harbour District Police in relation to a case registered against him at Kalitala- Ashuti Police Station under the same police district, where he had been accused of involvement in soil theft to the tune of Rs 400 crore. Custom Ad: Multiplex “Roy was produced at a lower court in Kolkata on Wednesday with a request to take him into custody. He is already in judicial custody in the Salboni land corruption case. That investigation is ongoing. Therefore, the Diamond Harbour Police District has shown him as arrested in this soil theft case as per the rules and pleaded for his custody,” said a district police officer. In the Salboni illegal land grabbing case, the police first arrested former Trinamool Congress legislator Sujay Hazra. During the investigation of Hazra, the name of Roy in relation to the case surfaced, following which he was arrested by the CID sleuths on September 10 after being questioned a number of times. In the chargesheet filed by the CID in the matter, the investigating agency had given details of how money in the Salboni illegal land grabbing case reached the office of Roy. In the midst of that investigation, he had been shown as arrested in another case by the Diamond Harbour District Police. --IANS src/dan