The CBI picked up Birbhum Trinamul Congress president Anubrata Mondal from his Bolpur residence on Thursday morning for his alleged involvement in a multi-crore cattle smuggling case.

Mondal was formally arrested later in the day. His arrest comes within three weeks of that of another senior Trinamul leader, Partha Chatterjee, in the teacher recruitment scam.

The central probe agency had summoned Mondal, known as one of Mamata Banerjee’s closest aides, on 10 occasions between April 23, 2021, and August 10, 2022, before picking him up him from his fortified home, fitted with CCTV cameras and guarded by state forces, in the Nichupatti area of Bolpur. He had skipped nine summonses citing poor health.

“The accused was consistently avoiding the CBI’s summons and was not cooperating with the investigation,” said R.C. Joshi, the investigation agency’s spokesperson, in Delhi.

On Thursday night, Mondal was brought to Calcutta. Officials said he would remain lodged in a lock-up at the CBI’s Nizam Palace office.

A team of doctors has been kept on standby at the Command Hospital in Alipore.

With Mondal’s arrest, the CBI has netted five people, including his bodyguard Saigal Hossain and the perceived kingpin of the trade Enamul Haque, in the cattle smuggling case that the central agency has been probing since 2020.

The allegation against Mondal is that he used his political clout to allow safe passage to Bangladesh for consignments of cattle, sourced from different parts of India and brought to the Illambazar cattle market in Birbhum.

The Opposition parties had said the value of the illegal cattle trade ran into hundreds of crores of rupees, and that it thrived because of Mondal’s alleged patronage.

Mondal’s arrest, multiple Trinamul insiders said, was another blow to the party at a time it is reeling under the impact of the arrest of Chatterjee.

Unlike its treatment of Chatterjee, who has been suspended from the party, Trinamul is yet to distance itself from Mondal. The party's student and youth fronts will organise protests across the state against the central agencies on Friday and Saturday.

The Opposition parties in Bengal celebrated Mondal’s arrest and demanded Mamata’s resignation.

“This man had been a law unto himself in Birbhum.… He used to rig elections, he used to intimidate law-enforcement agencies, he was involved in various corrupt activities. It’s a relief that he has been arrested,” former state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.

A team of officers arrived at Mondal’s two-storey house around 10am along with a battery of CRPF personnel, who took position at all the gates in the front and at the rear. The officers had to wait close to half an hour outside the locked gates before they were let in.

Sources said Mondal was offering morning prayers when the team walked in.

The officers climbed up the stairs, leaving his ground-floor office that has pictures of Mondal sharing space with Trinamul chairperson Mamata Banerjee plastered across the walls.

After an hour’s questioning, the officers detained Mondal. Sources said a few CRPF personnel were called inside the house and asked to make a clear passage so that Mondal could be taken unhindered to a car waiting outside.

Some of the officers said they had expected stiff resistance from Mondal’s supporters. But when Mondal was brought out by the CRPF personnel around 11.30am, only a few of his supporters were around.

A small crowd that had gathered outside the house was yet to make out that “Kesto”, as Anubrata is fondly known across Birbhum, had been detained.

A convoy of six cars took Mondal to an Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) guesthouse in Kulti, near Asansol, where he was questioned further. Around 45 minutes later, a team of three doctors was brought in for the mandatory health check-up. An oxygen cylinder too was requisitioned after Mondal, who suffers from sleep apnoea, complained of illness.

Mondal was later arrested and produced before a CBI court in Asansol. Some people in the crowd shouted: “Goru chor (cow thief)”.

Lawyers representing the CBI told the court that Mondal had been evading questions and not cooperating with the probe agency. They said he needed to be questioned in custody to find out more about his assets, believed to be disproportionate to his income.

Mondal’s counsel did not apply for bail but informed the court of his client’s age and chronic ailments. After hearing both sides, judge Rajesh Chakraborty remanded Mondal in CBI custody for nine days. He will be produced before the court on August 20.

Sources in the central agency claimed that interrogation of Saigal, Mondal’s bodyguard, and Enamul, the alleged kingpin, had strengthened the case against the Trinamul leader.

“The recent raids on the houses of some other people, like Kerim Khan and his close associate Ziaul Haque, at Illambazar and Nanoor during the probe threw up some vital leads. Saigal’s statements about Mondal have been very important for us,” said a CBI source.