Anubrata Mondal, the Birbhum district president of the Trinamul Congress, did not turn up before CBI officers on Tuesday for questioning in connection with a cattle smuggling case.

Mondal sent his lawyer to the central agency’s office with a letter to inform the investigators that he would appear for questioning only after the hearing of his appeal for immunity from the arrest by a division bench of Calcutta High Court on Wednesday.

The CBI that is probing into the alleged multi-crore cattle smuggling case had summoned Mondal to its Salt Lake office for the fourth time on Tuesday.

With Mondal remaining unavailable, the CBI officers questioned his bodyguard Saigal Hussain for several hours on Tuesday. Sources said the investigators wanted to know from Hussain in detail about all persons that the Trinamul leader would meet at different times during the period under probe — that was between 2015 and 2019.

The CBI has maintained that Mondal had allegedly overseen smuggling of cattle in huge numbers from parts of Murshidabad to areas across the border in Bangladesh in lieu of hefty payments as “protection money”.

The investigating agency has said it wants to question Mondal under section 160 of CrPC that deals with a police officer’s power of summoning someone while probing into a case as a witness.

Trinamul has maintained that summoning Mondal was a part of a grand plan to harass a section of leaders by the BJP-ruled Centre.

Senior Trinamul leaders recalled how Mondal had been summoned just ahead of polling dates in Birbhum during last year’s Assembly elections.