KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out raids at the houses of food and supplies minister Rathin Ghosh on the outskirts of Kolkata and 12 other places linked to the functionaries of TMC-dominated civic bodies around the state capital in connection with recruitment scam in municipalities.
The central agency probing the laundering of the proceeds of the recruitment scam, conducted the raids simultaneously. Other locations raided by the ED include the residences of the Kamarhati municipality chairman and Baranagar municipality chairman, houses of the deputy head of South Dum Dum civic body and former head Panchu Roy. A total of 15 municipalities are under the scanner of the central agencies in connection with the recruitment scam following an order passed by the Calcutta High Court this year.
Ghosh is the former chairman of Madhyamgram municipality in north 24 Parganas and he is accused of involvement in a scam to recruit unqualified candidates in the civic body in exchange of a bribe. According to sources in the ED, Ghosh’s name surfaced after it seized incriminating documents from an agency outsourced by various municipalities in the state to carry out the recruitment process, which revealed significant irregularities in recruitment procedures in Madhyamgram municipality during 2014 and 2018.
“The agency is owned by a TMC-backed promoter, Ayan Sil, who is presently in judicial custody. While conducting raids and search operations at Sil’s apartment in March this year in connection with irregularities in recruitment in state-aided primary schools, we first came across leads related to multi-crore civic bodies’ recruitment scam,” said an official.