Minister Partha Chatterjee has been housed in a temporary lock-up made of plywood at one end of a conference hall of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office on the sixth floor of the CGO Complex in Salt Lake, sources in the central investigating agency said.
Chatterjee will be spending his nights in this lock-up at least till August 3. Court has granted his custody to ED till then. The 7X8ft room has bottled water and a bed and is under continuous CCTV surveillance.
Two security personnel have been posted outside for round-the-clock supervision. There is no provision to make calls, senior ED officials said. Chatterjee has to walk a few metres to reach the washroom at one end of the conference hall.
Next to the conference hall is a permanent lock-up that can house at least four persons. Arpita Mukherjee has been lodged here since Monday night. A team of women security personnel has been deployed to guard her.
“The two accused persons have been lodged separately on the same floor of ED’s office. All basic amenities have been provided and arrangements made for their health check-up every 48 hours,” said a senior ED official.
For most of Tuesday, Chatterjee and Mukherjee were brought out of their lock-ups, taken to separate rooms and made to sit across tables with ED officers on the other side.
The two were not questioned together. A joint interrogation session is likely during their custody, an official said.
Chatterjee’s interrogation began around 9.30am, about an hour-and-a-half after he was brought to the city from Bhubaneswar. Senior ED officials took turns to question him about his links with Mukherjee and whether he had parked money with her.
The questioning continued till the lunch break at 1pm. A second round of questioning took place after lunch.
Food for the accused is usually sourced from a canteen in the CGO Complex.
“Mukherjee has been more or less forthcoming. The minister did not cooperate with us during questioning,” an ED official said. “He insisted on taking rest and wanted to sleep.”