TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha caught while 'fleeing' as ED raids house over Bengal school job 'irregularities'

Kolkata: TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha ran through his backyard and hopped over a wall when the officials of the Directorate of Enforcement knocked on his front door early in the morning on Monday. The 48-year-old threw his phone into a drain before his sprint on the muddy and slippery back alley was shortened by a fall.

His neighbours at Andi in Murshidabad saw the Trinamool Congress leader, who was elected to the West Bengal legislative assembly from Burwan in 2021, begging the paramilitary personnel not to hurt him as they helped him get up before the ED officials started questioning him in connection with the teacher recruitment scam. The marathon questioning went on for almost four hours before he was formally arrested.

The ED officials also recovered his phone, which he had thrown into the drain.

People of his constituency were not surprised by the early morning drama, though. They had seen Saha making a similar attempt to flee when the officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation had raided his house on April 17, 2023. He had then thrown his phone into a pond before the CBI officials were able to catch him in connection with the same teacher recruitment scam. The probe agency had later pumped out the water of the pond to retrieve the phone, which they had wanted to scan for evidence.

Saha had spent 13 months behind bars before the Supreme Court had granted him bail in May 2024.

Both the CBI and the ED are conducting separate probes into the alleged corruption and irregularities in the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching employees in the schools across West Bengal in 2016, particularly into the alleged role of several leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress.

The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld the Calcutta High Court’s April 22, 2024, verdict invalidating the appointment of 25752 government school employees for malpractices in the recruitment process.

Apart from the residence of Saha, the ED on Monday also conducted raids in several other places in connection with the alleged scam.

The arrest of the 48-year-old TMC MLA once again triggered a war of words between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party and its principal rival, Bharatiya Janata Party.

“Saha was earlier arrested. But even after keeping him in custody for nearly a year, he got bail as a central probe agency couldn't prove anything. But now ED has arrested him. This only proves that ED is working at the behest of the BJP ahead of the assembly polls,” Jaiprakash Majumdar, the vice president of the TMC, said.

“The TMC has become synonymous with scam. Not just Saha, earlier education minister Partha Chatterjee, MLA Manik Bhattacharya and others have been arrested in connection with the recruitment scam,” senior BJP leader, Jagganath Chattopadhyay, said.

Saha on Monday did not help the ED officials with the password of his phone, even after its recovery from where he had thrown it. The probe agency seized the phone.