Separate teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out search and seizure operations at six locations on Friday in connection with its probe into alleged irregularities in appointments in government-aided schools.
Among the addresses raided were the office and three apartments of Rajiv Dey, a realtor known to be close to former Bengal education minister and Trinamul Congress leader Partha Chatterjee, who is in custody in connection with the alleged irregularities.
Early on Friday, separate teams reached the office and apartments of Dey in Bansdroni and Ballygunge. Other teams turned up at the house and office of a bullion trader in Golpark and at an address in Ballygunge Phari.
“Our investigation is aimed at tracing the route of the money linked to the alleged irregularities in the appointments in schools and the places where the money lies parked. We are carrying out the probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act,” said a senior ED official.
“We wanted to check documents and find out whether some of these persons were involved in parking the proceeds of the crime.”
Senior ED officials said Dey owned a construction company and his office was near Chatterjee’s home in Naklata.
His name allegedly surfaced following interrogation of Bappaditya Dasgupta, a Trinamul councillor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation who is believed to be close to Chatterjee, an ED official said.
“It has emerged that some of the directors of Dey’s company were close acquaintances of Chatterjee. We wanted to examine documents and find out details of Dey’s business transactions over the past few years,” the official said.
Dey has been in the real estate business for over a decade.
The central investigating agency has been zeroing in on some of the possible beneficiaries of the proceeds of the crime for the past few months.
An ED official said they were trying to join the dots by questioning some of those whose names had surfaced during the probe. “Dey was among them,” the official said.