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Kolkata, Nov 16 (IANS) Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday released an audio clip and claimed it confirms that Trinamool Congress MLA Jiban Krishna Saha, who is in jail in the multi-crore cash for school jobs case, is still collecting money from behind bars by promising school jobs.
Addressing media persons in his constituency Nandigram in East Midnapore district in the morning, the opposition leader played the audio clip on his mobile.
He claimed that the voice of the person demanding money was allegedly that of Saha, who is in judicial custody after being arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths in the school-job case earlier this year.
The officer also claimed that the conversation heard in the audio clip had taken place recently when Saha was still behind bars. However, IANS could not verify the authenticity of the audio clip.
In the audio clip, a man (claimed by the leader as Saha) was heard asking another man to send Rs 50,000 immediately. In response, another person is heard saying in the audio clip, “Yes, I am sending it. So till now you have been paid Rs 15.50 lakh.”
Adhikari wrote on his X handle, “TMC and their jailbird MLA Jiban Krishna Saha should be ashamed. The saying; ‘Habit is second nature’, or ‘The leopard does not change its spots’ has a new synonym – once a scammer, always a scammer!!! While honest Bengalis are sweating blood for the future of their children, this corrupt TMC thug; Jiban Krishna Saha is running his extortion racket straight from the jail cell!”
“Yes, you heard right, Saha is roaming around and doing transactions, taking bribes, and swiftly disposing of sham teacher recruitments as if it is another day in jail. Is this Mamata Banerjee’s “symbol of honesty (सत्तार प्रतिक)” arrived? A criminal playground where law is a joke and jails have turned into TMC offices?” He has written.
He also urged the ED to “immediately” get these voice samples of the scammer investigated, and if proven guilty, the entire teacher recruitment scam cases be transferred outside West Bengal.
The officer also demanded action against jail officials, saying, “Teachable jail officials who carried out this robbery in broad daylight. This is criminal negligence at best, collusion at worst. They have to face it.”
Earlier this month, the ED counsel informed a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Kolkata that Saha, the Trinamool Congress MLA from Burwan assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, and his associates demanded money in exchange for jobs not only from ineligible job seekers but also from eligible candidates.
The ED has already recorded statements of several candidates, who have given detailed information about the money transactions made directly to the MLA and his associates. Many of them have said that when they initially refused to pay the money, recruitment was delayed or cancelled.
In August this year, ED had arrested Saha from his house in Burwan in Murshidabad district. The MLA tried to escape by climbing the boundary wall of his house and threw one of his two mobile phones in a bush. However, he was stopped from escaping by ED officials, who also recovered the mobile phone. After he failed to answer ED’s questions regarding lakhs of rupees found in the bank accounts of his relatives, he was arrested by the financial investigation agency.
In April 2023, CBI had arrested Saha in the same case. After 13 months he got bail from the Supreme Court.
According to sources, ED officials told the court that the scam money was deposited in Saha’s bank account in installments.
The ED case is related to a CBI FIR registered on the orders of the Calcutta High Court over alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group C and D staff, assistant teachers of classes 9 to 12 and primary teachers. The central agency has so far filed four chargesheets and arrested several prominent people, including former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, his alleged aide Arpita Mukherjee and former Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya.
–IANS
Source/DPB