Indranil Sen being arrested outside the ED office on Wednesday
The former minister’s arrest in the afternoon followed a flurry of activities by cops with at least 10 officers from Lalbazar reaching the ED office with official documents and another team reaching Bidhannagar North police station for assistance. Around 5.10pm, amid heavy police presence outside the facility, Sen was escorted to a police vehicle. Investigation into the alleged scam started following a written complaint at Bowbazar police station by international travel consultant Joydeep Mukherjee claiming that Sen and his wife, Madhuchhanda, used an organisation called MassArt to sell tickets priced between Rs 4,000 and Rs 12,000 for exclusive access to 24 popular Durga Puja pandals and fabricated a partnership with Unesco, which the agency later denied. MassArt was set up in 2022. As part of the probe, ED conducted raids at 15 locations associated with Sen on Sept 29.
Shortly afterwards, CM Suvendu Adhikari said, “Both ED and Kolkata Police were investigating him. The former Trinamool Congress MLA from Chandernagore had appeared before ED for questioning in connection with the alleged multi-crore Durga Puja privilege pass scam. Sen joins a long list of Trinamool seniors arrested since May on allegations ranging from corruption to extortion and intimidation. They include former ministers Sujit Bose, Udayan Guha and Dilip Mondal, former MLAs Sabyasachi Dutta, Shaukat Molla, Ajit Maity and Nirmal Ghosh, former councillors Sushanta Ghosh, Swapan Samaddar, Sushmita Bhattacharya Chatterjee, Sudip Polley and Md Jasimuddin, and senior party functionaries Jayprakash Majumdar and Swaroop Biswas. They must have found evidence, and legal action was taken on that basis.
Kolkata: Former state information and culture minister and singer Indranil Sen was dramatically arrested by Kolkata Police’s detective department officers as he stepped out of Enforcement Directorate ’s Salt Lake CGO Complex office on Wednesday. Sen’s arrest follows a series of legal setbacks with the high court rejecting his anticipatory bail application and the Supreme Court bench of Justice Dipankar Dutta on Tuesday recusing from hearing his petition for personal reasons, leaving the matter pending.