Kolkata, Aug 3 (IANS) The Birbhum District Police on Monday morning arrested Sitesh Pramanik, the manager of an absconding stone-quarry owner from the district, Tulu Mondal a.k.a. Mohammad Nazibuddin.
Last week, the Birbhum District Police arrested Minar Mondal, a close relative of Tulu Mondal, after Rs 28 crore in unaccounted cash and 15 kilograms of gold with an estimated market value of around Rs 22 crore, was recovered from his residence at Birbhum.
In face of interrogation, Minar confessed that the cash and gold was owned by Tulu Mondal and he was just responsible for their safekeeping at his residence.
Thereafter, the cops seized Tulu Mondal’s residence at Suri in Birbhum district.
Now, on Monday morning, the cops arrested his manager Sitesh to interrogate him about the source of money and gold recovered from Minar’s residence last week.
He will be presented at a district court later in the day and the Public Prosecutor will seek his police custody.
“We had been looking for Sitesh ever since the recovery of this huge amount of money and gold last week from Minar’s residence.
“Earlier, Sheikh Wasim, another relative of Tulu Mondal, was arrested from Siliguri in Darjeeling district on Saturday night. He was trying to escape to neighbouring Nepal, when he was nabbed. Wasim is Tulu’s nephew.
“Now Sitesh has been arrested. This is the third arrest in the matter after Minar and Wasim,” a Birbhum district police officer said.
Meanwhile, Tulu Mondal continues to be on the run. As per information gathered by the cops, he is probably in Dubai now with a couple of his close family members.
Interrogations of Minar and Wasim did not yield results on this count as neither of them could specify Tulu’s current whereabouts.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), too, has begun the preparatory process to start a probe against Tulu. The central agency officials are currently collecting information from the Birbhum District Police in the matter.
Tulu Mondal was known in the district as a close confidant of Anubrata Mondal, the former Trinamool Congress’ Birbhum district president, who had earlier spent days behind bars after being arrested first by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and then by the ED in 2022 in connection with his involvement in a cattle smuggling case in West Bengal.
Tulu Mondal’s name had also come up in the cattle smuggling case. He was under the watch of the ED in 2022. At that time, the Central investigators raided his house and office.
–IANS
src/rad