Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a cattle smuggling case after failing to appear for questioning twice in three days.

After the CBI filed a FIR in 2020, his name came up in the case. According to the CBI, over 20,000 cattle heads were seized by the Border security force while being smuggled across the border between 2015 and 2017.

With this arrest, two prominent TMC leaders in West Bengal have been arrested by central agencies. Earlier, Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee had been arrested by the ED in a teacher recruitment scheme scam to the tune of crores.

Mondal on Wednesday had written to the CBI about his inability to appear before its sleuths in connection with a cattle smuggling case citing “illness” as a reason, a senior officer said.

The TMC Birbhum district president, who is in his 60s, had attached copies of two prescriptions along with his letter and sought two weeks time from the officers of the probe agency to appear before them at its city office. Mondal’s counsel on Wednesday morning had dropped the letter at the central agency’s office in the city.

“We have received a communication from Mr. Mondal in which he informed us about his inability to appear before our officers at our office here today. In the letter, Mr. Mondal has written that he is on total bed rest as per the advice of the doctors and cannot move outside his residence. He has attached two copies of doctors’ prescriptions and requested us to give him two weeks’ time to come to our office,” the CBI officer had told PTI.

The prescriptions submitted by Mondal are of doctors from the city’s SSKM Hospital and Bolpur Hospital.

The CBI had on Tuesday summoned Mondal to come to its city office for questioning in connection with their investigation, a day after the TMC leader skipped appearing before its officers. Mondal had visited the city on Monday but instead of going to the CBI office went to the SSKM Hospital for a check-up.

Doctors at the state-run medical facility had advised him to come back after two months stating that he was only having a few chronic diseases. After that, the TMC leader straightaway left for his Bolpur residence.

He has been questioned twice thus far by the central agency, which in the recent past also conducted raids at various locations in the district in connection with the case. Mondal’s bodyguard Saigal Hossain has also been arrested by the probe agency.

The TMC leader, who often made headlines for his off-the-cuff remarks on various issues, has been asked by the CBI to appear before it on several occasions in connection with its probe into the cattle scam. In the past, too, Mondal skipped summonses citing ill health.

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