Kolkata: Kolkata Police announced on Monday the recovery of cash worth Rs 5.96 crore from the residence of Arvind Pande, the brother of businessman Sailesh Pande who is accused of forgery in the name of arranging bank loans.
This is the second recovery by the city police in connection with the case.
Two days earlier, the police recovered Rs 2 crore from Sailesh Pande’s residence, following which the police also froze two bank accounts held by him having deposits worth Rs 20 crore.
According to an official, a joint team of sleuths from the Kolkata Police and Howrah City Police raided Arvind Pande’s residence in Horwah district on Sunday night.
“No one was there when our men reached the residence at around 1 a.m. So, they had to break open the lock and finally recovered cash worth Rs 5.96 crore from a box-cot. Also, some gold ornaments, a laptop, a vehicle and some bank documents were also seized,” the official added.
Arvind Pande is missing and the city police have issued a lookout notice against him.
The investigation in the matter was launched by officers in the Hare Street Police Station on Saturday morning on the basis of a written complaint by the branch authorities of a private sector bank about multiple fictitious transactions of huge amounts from the two accounts.
The cops immediately froze the two bank accounts having deposits of Rs 20 crore.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties in the state said that recovery of illegal cash has been a regular feature in West Bengal.
“The Chief Minister often expresses dissatisfaction over the poor state of exchequer. Actually, there is enough money in India. The only difference is that those funds are illegally earned,” said BJP’s national vice-president and party MP, Dilip Ghosh.
Since July this year, there has been several cash and gold recoveries in huge quantities in the state, the first related to multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment irregularities scam, as well as the mobile gaming app fraud, case.
–IANS