ED arrests Bengal actual property developer | Kolkata

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a real estate developer in connection with the alleged multi-crore school recruitment scam in West Bengal.

The agency searched Ayan Sil’s house and office near Kolkata for around 36 hours and questioned him before arresting him late on Sunday.

ED officials said Sil is a close aide to former ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing leader Santanu Banerjee, who was earlier arrested for his alleged role in the scam.

The agency said it seized digital documents from seven hard disks from his office apart from other materials.

Santanu Banerjee is suspected of having invested a portion of the proceeds from the alleged scam in multiple businesses through Sil.

Officials said he was a mobile mechanic in 2015 and later an employee of a state-run power company before emerging as a wealthy businessman in just seven years with properties worth crores.

The ED last week told a court that the volume of the recruitment scam in which multiple TMC leaders have been arrested might run up to ₹350 crores.

In 2022, Calcutta high court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the appointment of non-teaching and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5 to ₹15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.

The ED arrested education minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee last year in connection with the alleged scam. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee later removed Chatterjee from the government and suspended him from TMC.