The Enforcement Directorate (ED) told a court here on Monday that two-three Bengal ministers had received portions of money that former Sandeshkhali strongman Sheikh Shahjahan had allegedly made by grabbing villagers' plots and converting them into bheries (ponds for pisciculture).

The ED made the submission in the special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court to press for the denial of bail to Shahjahan, who is a member of the North 24-Parganas zilla parishad.

The court was also told that Shahjahan had spent the money made through the expropriation of land to procure arms.

The counsel for the ED said Shahjahan was very influential and a bail at this point could affect the investigation into the alleged irregularities.

"Shahjahan is very well connected with those at the top (of the administration) and two-three ministers received a part of the money that was generated from land grabbing and converting them into bheries," the lawyer representing the central investigating agency told the court.

Sources in the agency declined to divulge the names of the ministers even off the record. A source said they had the proof to back their claim.

"We have also found out that a part of the money earned from the land deals was invested in purchasing sophisticated arms."

The ED, which is probing the alleged money trail in the irregularities in the public distribution system, arrested Shahjahan on March 30 after questioning him for several hours at the Basirhat sub-jail, where he was lodged following his arrest by the CBI.

On Monday, the suspended Trinamul leader was produced in the PMLA court where the ED alleged that Shahjahan had run a syndicate that had allegedly been engaged in grabbing plots forcibly and converting them into waterbodies to rear fish.

The allegation that Shahjahan ploughed back a part of his earnings from the land grabbing to procure arms illegally comes days after the CBI recovered a cache of sophisticated firearms, ammunition, explosives and bombs from a house at Sarberia village in Sandeshkhali. The operation was carried out jointly by the central investigating agency and the NSG.

The owner of the house, Abu Taleb Mollah, is a relative of Shahjahan, sources in the CBI said and added that it was not clear why such a huge cache of arms, ammunition and explosives had been stacked inside the house.

Shahjahan's links with Jyoti Priya Mallik, a former minister in charge of the public distribution system whom the ED arrested in October last year for his alleged role in irregularities in the ration supply, surfaced in public early this year when the CRPF, guarding the latter at the SSKM Hospital, got hold of a letter.

The letter purportedly written by Mallik instructed his daughter to connect Shahjahan among others to arrange money to fight the legal battle, the ED said.

On Monday, the ED told the court that the former Sandeshkahli strongman ensured that tenders for different projects, including the movement of ferries, had been bagged by his aides. This continued between 2016 and 2023 and the tenders were mostly related to panchayat projects, the ED said.