The CID arrested four alleged coal smugglers from West Burdwan in two back-to-back raids since Sunday. Sources said the crackdown, following strict instructions from Nabanna, will continue.

The four alleged coal smugglers — Bijay Singh and Abhishek Sinha, both residents of Andal, Yudhisthir Ghosh from Pandaveswar and Asansol resident Om Prakash Agarwal — were arrested by the state investigating agency.

The alleged coal smugglers were produced before a court in Durgapur and were remanded them in CID custody for eight days for further interrogations.

One of the accused, Bijay Singh, claimed that he was innocent and had no link with coal smuggling. “I am a small trader of cashew and kishmis (raisins) and have no link with coal smuggling,” he said while being taken to court on Monday.

The CID has been probing the alleged coal scam since 2020 and had earlier arrested Rajesh Jha alias Raju, a businessman with alleged links with coal smuggling. However, the arrest came after Jha joined the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls. Jha is out on bail now.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee ordered the CID probe before the Assembly elections. The order coincided with the ongoing CBI probe launched in November 2019 by the Centre against the alleged multi-crore coal scam in which names of some Trinamul heavyweights were tagged.

CID officials said the four were arrested in connection with a coal smuggling case lodged in Andal police station 2019. “Earlier we arrested Rajesh Jha who is out on bail now. The four persons were arrested in connection with the same case. We will interrogate them in our custody and more arrests will be made,” said a CID official in Durgapur.

Sources said the instruction to launch crackdown came from Nabanna after the three-day visit of the chief minister to West Burdwan ended on June 29. Sources said information from various sources reached Nabanna that small-time coal smugglers had allegedly regrouped and were about to resume organised coal smuggling under the leadership of Jha.

Sources said Jha’s name again came in limelight after his company recently bagged the contract of disposing of a part of a huge amount of iron slag from a steel plant in Durgapur. His rival and another alleged coal smuggler Naran Kharka also bagged the same project in another part. Kharka was arrested by the CBI and got released on bail a few months ago.