WBSSC scam: Third 'middleman' arrested by ED

Kolkata, Sep 5 The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment irregularities scam, on Monday afternoon arrested another middleman, identified as Subrata Talukdar.

This the third middleman arrested in the scam but the first by the ED. Two middlemen, namely Pradeep Singh and Prasanna Roy, were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Roy is the relative of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General, Partha Chatterjee, who is currently under judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the scam.

Malakar was known in his locality as a practicing chartered accountant. At around 8 a.m. on Monday, a team of ED sleuths reached his residence at Sodepur in North 24 Parganas district. However, he was not present at his residence and hence the ED officials asked his wife to contact him and ask him to rush back immediately.

After he came back, the ED sleuths started questioning him and after over six hours of marathon grilling, he was finally taken into custody.

The ED sleuths also seized some bank passbooks, statements of accounts and other related documents from his position. Money transfers of hefty amounts from these accounts were also traced from these bank accounts.

"We questioned Malakar about these transactions including the sources of funds for these transactions. However, we did not get any satisfactory reply and so we finally arrested him," an ED official said.

Meanwhile, a special CBI court on Monday afternoon, extended the CBI custody of Roy for another four days, till September 9.

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