The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is looking into the school jobs scam in West Bengal, on Sunday claimed to have recovered a list of candidates, admit cards and OMR sheets
from the office of a realtor considered close to now expelled Trinamool Congress leader Shantanu Banerjee.
Sources in the central agency claimed that the documents and electronic evidence found in the Salt Lake office of Ayan Sheel, the real estate promoter, indicated towards his involvement not just in the school recruitment case but other instances of corruption as well.
The ED recovered 350-400 OR sheets, computer hard discs and other documents after a night-long search on Saturday, officials said. Some of the documents are related to recruitment in several municipalities of the state, they added.
The hard disks contain recruitment notices of municipalities in the state with some folders having the names of job seekers and beneficiaries, it is learned. Some “handwritten notes” regarding recruitment and several property documents are also among the recovered items.
Shantanu, one of the accused in the school recruitment scam, is now in ED custody. When the ED officials reached Ayan Sheel’s house on Saturday, another team interrogated some people close to Shantanu at a resort in Balagarh.
The ED said Ayan is also associated with a production company in the Bengali film industry. The agency suspects that a substantial amount of black money has diverted to the film industry.
Already, five-six Bengali actors are under the scanner of the ED in connection with the recruitment scam case. Actor Boney Sengupta has been accused of taking money from now expelled Trinamool youth wing leader Kuntal Ghosh.
After two rounds of interrogation by the slueths, Sengupta transferred the money taken from Ghosh to the agency that suspects other people also made Kuntal and Shantanu invest directly in the Bengali films. Ayan Sheel is likely to be one such investor, the ED sources said.
The money-laundering case in the recruitment of Group ‘C’ and ‘D’ staff, assistant teachers of classes 11 and 11 and primary teachers was filed by the ED after an FIR by the CBI.