Amid the election atmosphere in West Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday (April 25) took major action in the ration distribution (PDS) scam case. The raids were conducted at nine locations linked to suppliers and exporters in Kolkata, Bardhaman and Habra in North 24 Parganas district. The team of ED’s Kolkata zonal office took this action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA). The places where raids were conducted are said to be related to ration scam accused Niranjan Chandra Saha and other related people. A businessman’s residence in Habra was also raided.
In this case, ED had started investigation on the basis of FIR registered by West Bengal Police. This FIR was registered at Basirhat police station on 23 October 2020. The case came to light on the complaint of the Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Ghojadanga LCS, alleging large-scale misappropriation of wheat under the Public Distribution System (PDS).
Investigation has revealed that the accused had adopted a well-planned mechanism to misappropriate the PDS wheat earmarked for welfare schemes. This wheat was purchased illegally at low prices in collusion with suppliers, licensed distributors, dealers and middlemen. After this, a large quantity of wheat was removed from the supply chain and stored illegally at different places.
To hide the identity of the wheat, the accused altered or reversed the original sacks bearing the markings of Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the state government and refilled them. Due to this, the real identity of the wheat was hidden and PDS wheat was shown as legitimate stock and sold in the open market. Through this process, the accused made huge illegal profits and generated ‘proceeds of crime’, as revealed in the ED investigation.
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