School jobs scam: 48 hours on and counting, CBI stays put at TMC MLA’s house
The CBI on Sunday continued search at Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Jiban Krishna Saha’s residence in Murshidabad district in connection with the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam in West Bengal, more than 48 hours after the agency started the operation.
Saha, MLA from the Burwan constituency, was questioned several times by the agency officials, it is learnt.
The investigators on Saturday claimed to have recovered five bags of “incriminating” documents from the bushes near the boundary wall of the legislator’s residence.
The documents have photographs of aspiring candidates having paid bribes to get jobs affixed, the agency claimed.
The bribes collected from the candidates are estimated to be in several crores of rupees, it is alleged. The agency officials claimed that when tried to seize his two mobile phones on Saturday, the MLA threw them into a pond located on his residential premises. But they were able to recover one of the phones after a search lasting 32 hours with the help of pumps and other equipment.
The search for the second phone that was allegedly thrown away was on till filing of the report. The central agency has claimed some people, including Saha, acted as conduits between the candidates and other accused by promising the aspirants jobs as primary teachers in 2016.
Responding to the development, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “Elected public representatives are throwing their phones into ponds after snatching the devices from CBI officials. The TMC is neck-deep in corruption.”
On this, state minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim said, “In Bengal, central agencies come and carry out probes and nobody interferes here like it happens in BJP-ruled states. We don’t kill people in encounter. If anyone is involved in corruption, the law will take its course.”
Meanwhile, the BJP on Sunday said that one after another TMC leaders are getting arrested in the school recruitment scam case.
“OMR sheets are being found from salwar suit packets, admit cards are being found from promoter’s office, and one after another TMC leaders are being arrested. Wherever the central agencies are raiding, they end up finding leads of many benami and illegal properties. Such is the condition of the education system in West Bengal,” BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
