The CBI on Friday night deployed three pump sets to empty a pond in a remote Murshidabad village to find two cellphones of Trinamul MLA Jiban Krishna Saha that sleuths suspect might contain data related to the teachers’ recruitment scam.

The interrogation of Saha, who represents Burwan in the Assembly, has been continuing for over 28 hours.

Sources said a CBI team reached Saha’s house inBurwan’s Andi village onFriday afternoon after his name emerged during the interrogation of a few persons involved in the recruitment racket.

After around four hours of interrogation, the sleuths could not trace his two mobile phones which they consider important for the investigation.

“In the middle of the interrogation, Saha went to the roof of his house and this led investigators to suspect that the MLA had dumped his mobile phones in the pond adjacent to his house. That is why the CBI hired three pump sets and started emptying the pond to find the mobile phones,” said a CBI source.

Hundreds of locals braved the scorching heat to witness the “unprecedented” search for mobile phones.

“The digital gadget detector did not work because of the depth of the water. This necessitated emptying of the pond to find the phones with the help of the detector,” a CBI source said.