TMC bank accounts under scanner as cyber police probe five years of transactions

Kolkata, June 23 (IANS) The cyber police in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district has launched a detailed investigation into three bank accounts belonging to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) that were recently placed under debit freeze following police directions.

Sources familiar with the investigation at the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station under the Bidhannagar City Police said officers are scrutinising inward and outward transactions in these accounts over the past five years. The probe is focused on tracing the sources of incoming funds as well as identifying the destinations where money was transferred from the accounts.

Investigators are also examining other aspects linked to the accounts, including the dates on which they were opened, the names under which they were registered, and the identities of authorised signatories who operated them over the years.

The transaction records are being closely analysed, considering allegations that extortion proceeds and illegal commission money were deposited into these accounts. Investigators are also probing claims that the funds generated through such activities were subsequently routed from the accounts for other unlawful purposes.

The investigation follows complaints filed by several rebel TMC legislators at the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station. In their complaints, the legislators alleged that money collected through extortion had been parked in the three bank accounts.

Based on these complaints, the police registered an FIR and initiated an investigation. As part of the first phase of the probe, authorities directed the bank to impose a debit freeze on all three accounts.

A few days earlier, the party’s former treasurer and former sports and power minister in the Mamata Banerjee-led government, Aroop Biswas, had written to the private sector bank requesting that the accounts be frozen. In his communication, he cited a dispute over control of party funds arising from an internal conflict within the Trinamool Congress.

Meanwhile, a faction of the Trinamool that continues to remain loyal to former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Monday approached the Calcutta High Court challenging the decision to freeze the accounts.

In its petition, the party sought the court’s intervention to ascertain under whose authority and on what grounds the debit freeze was imposed on the three accounts.

–IANS

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