ED Raids 13 Locations in Bengal to Probe PDS Scam

Investigators from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Saturday as their teams raided 13 locations in three districts that a network of rice mill owners, distributors, and dealers was allegedly at work to ensure beneficiaries of the public distribution system in Bengal did not receive their due share of wheat and rice despite the state government footing the bill.

Many of these mill owners would reportedly end up riding the support system that arrested rice mill owner Bakibur Rahman had constructed with the cooperation of arrested minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, selling PDS wheat and rice in open markets and parking their money in assets, they added.

According to ED officers, Bakibur, a businessman from Calcutta who was detained before Mallick on October 14, accumulated assets that were almost equal to Rs 100 crore.

For example, in July 2019, a rice mill owner from Bongaon in North 24-Parganas established his first mill. He established another rice mill a month later. Two months after the first, he joined a firm that made jewelry and diamonds. He had a position as a director at a hotel by 2021, according to a top ED official. "We want to examine his documents and find out where he gets his money."

Several locations in the North 24-Parganas district, including Bongaon, were the target of search and raid operations conducted on Saturday by several ED teams.

Teams of ED officials spread out to rice and wheat mills in various regions of Nadia and Howrah, in addition to North 24-Parganas, where Mallick served as the district president for Trinamul.

The amount of orders these mills received from the state to supply to ration distributors, yearly log sheets of items sent out of the mills, transaction details of bank accounts connected to the mills, and a list of the ration suppliers who would receive items from these mills were some of the aspects that ED teams focused on during their search and raid operations at 13 locations in these districts on Saturday.

The office of a wheat mill owner on AJC Bose Road in Calcutta, his home in Ballygunge, and his mill in Howrah were among the several places where ED teams conducted searches on Saturday. Authorities said that they intended to investigate the claims made by the corporation that it would purchase wheat intended for the PDS and use it to sell packaged wheat on the open market under a different brand name.