The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested West Bengal industry minister Partha Chatterjee on Saturday as a part of ongoing investigations into alleged irregularities in recruitment of teachers and other staff for government-aided schools after he was grilled for over 24 hours amid search operations across the state.

• Partha Chatterjee was sent to ED's custody for two days by the Bankshall court on Saturday. He was taken to the court after undergoing a medical examination at ESI Hospital in Joka. The minister will be produced before the court on Monday again
• Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was taken to ESI Hospital in Joka after his arrest. He underwent a medical examination, reported anandabazar.com

ED officials have also detained Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of Chatterjee after close to Rs 21 crore cash was recovered in raids conducted through Friday on her premises.

They have, sources have told anandabazarpatrika.com, also seized jewellery worth Rs 50 lakh from her home. More than 20 mobile phones were also recovered. Officials are now trying to ascertain what these were used for.

Sources said at least there counting machines were used to count the notes through the night. Till late last night, the figure was close to Rs 20 lakh sources said.

'Picture abhi baki hai'

While the Trinamul has condemned the alleged "politics of vendetta by the BJP-led Centre and otd agencies", local BJP leaders flagged the raids as "evidence" of wrongdoing in recent recruitment scandal that has seen a Bengal minister's daughter having to give up her teacher's job she got illegally at a high school.

Following a high court order, she has had to return the money she had received as salary. "Yeh toh bas trailer hai, picture abhi baki hai (This is just a trailer, the movie is yet to come)..." tweeted senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari after Friday's raids at Arpita Mukherjee's flat.

In a series of tweets he posted on Friday, Adhikari also shared several purported photos of Mukherjee with minister Chatterjee and chief minister Mamata Banerjee. "'Guilty by Association' - a legal phenomenon used to describe when an individual is guilty of committing a crime through knowing someone else," the leader of the Opposition in the state said in a caption to one of the photos.

Grilling from Friday morning

At least seven to eight ED personnel arrived at Chatterjee's Naktala residence in Calcutta around 8:30 am on Friday, and carried out searches till 11 am with CRPF personnel keeping guard outside, the source said.

Another team of agency officials visited Adhikari's home at Mekhliganj in Coochbehar district and talked to his family members, he stated.

According to the ED source, officials had also carried out a simultaneous raid at the residence of the former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, Manik Bhattacharya, in the Jadavpur area of the city.

ED tracking money trail

The CBI, as directed by the high court, is looking into the alleged irregularities committed in the recruitment of Group-C and D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission. The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.

Chatterjee, currently industries and commerce minister, held the education portfolio when the scam was allegedly pulled off. He was interrogated by the CBI twice, once on April 26 and then on May18.

Adhikari, the minister of state (MoS) for education, had also been grilled by the CBI with his daughter losing her job as school teacher. He told reporters he could not get in touch with his family over the phone.

'I would have given them muri'

"They did not intimate us about the visit to our house today. I am in Kolkata in connection with the July 21 Martyrs' Day rally of the TMC. Had I been around, I would have treated them to muri (puffed rice), he said.

The TMC, meanwhile, described the concerted raids as ploy by the BJP government at the Centre to harass political opponents.

"This raid by ED, a day after the spectacular Martyrs' Day rally that created ripples all over the country, is nothing but an attempt to harass and intimidate leaders of the TMC. The CBI has already interrogated them (ministers) as part of a court directive and they are cooperating. Now, the ED is being invoked only to discredit them. The money laundering issue is being invented by the BJP," transport minister Firhad Hakim said.

Large-scale anomalies: BJP

The BJP, however, maintained that the TMC aided large-scale anomalies in the recruitment process of teachers at primary, upper primary and secondary level since coming to power.

"TMC leaders and people close to them duped lakhs of qualified youths and handed over their jobs to ineligible ones. The CBI and ED are progressing on the right path. More skeletons will tumble out of the cupboard. The BJP has no role to play in the issue," the saffron party's national vice-president, Dilip Ghosh, added.