Arpita Mukherjee, from whose flat the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it seized more than Rs 21 crore and jewellery, was arrested on Saturday evening in connection with the probe into alleged irregularities in recruitments in government-aided schools.
ED sources said Rs 21.9 crore and jewellery worth
Rs 78 lakh stashed in trunks were seized from the apartment in Diamond City South complex near Tollygunge.
The scale of the seizure was so enormous that a truck was called in. The currency notes and jewellery were packed in steel trunks and loaded by paramilitary personnel around 30 hours after the ED had reached her flat on Friday.
Till late on Saturday, there was no formal statement on the seizures or the charges under which she had been booked.
Sources said eight machines had to be deployed to count the money for over 12 hours. The counting started on Friday evening and was completed on Saturday morning.
Jewelleries on a truck (below) that ED officers said they seized from Arpita Mukherjee’s flat Sanat Kr Sinha
Mukherjee claimed innocence and screamed that she had been framed on her way to the ED vehicle outside her apartment building. “Ami kono anyay kori ni. Amake phasano hoyechhe. BJP anek boro kichhu kaaj korchhe, ami etuku bolte pari (I have not committed any offence. I have been framed. The BJP is involved big time, this much I can say),” she said while being taken away.
An actress, Mukherjee is known for her association with arrested minister Partha Chatterjee’s Durga puja at Naktala Udayan Sangha.
Originally a resident of Dewanpara in Belgharia, 12 property deeds in her name have been found from Chatterjee’s residence, an ED officer said.
Mukherjee’s lawyer said the ED had not followed protocol in the arrest. “We are yet to receive the seizure list or arrest memo. Despite being a woman, my client was forcefully taken out of her flat almost at sundown,” Soham Bandyopadhyay said.
Mukherjee’s mother Minati told reporters her daughter visited her often at her home. “She had turned down a job offer in place of her father and went on to act in films, television soaps and was associated with a few production houses,” she said.
Sources in the tinsel world told investigators that Mukherjee had featured in the Bengali film Partner featuring Jeet and Swastika Mukherjee in 2008 and in Mama Bhagney that had Prosenjit Chatterjee and Ranjit Mullick in the lead.
Over the next few years, she acted in two Odia films and then in a Tamil film.
She was active on social media and has an Instagram account with the handle “arrpietaitsme” with 19,000 followers.
Residents of the housing complex knew Mukherjee as the woman who loved dogs. Security personnel said she owned several dogs of different breeds.
ED officers said two apartments whose deeds were found in Chatterjee’s house are located in a complex on BT Road.
Ankit Churoria, secretary of Club Town Residency, a highrise building on BT Road, said Mukherjee has two flats there. “The 1700sq ft flat in tower II is attached with a terrace. The other one is a 1500sq ft flat on the eighth floor of tower V,” Churoria told Metro.
Mukherjee will be produced before a court on Sunday.