Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal, who was in judicial remand following his arrest by the CBI in August in a cattle smuggling case, was sent to police custody by a sub-divisional court here on Tuesday in connection with a six-month-old assault case lodged with a local police station.
A Delhi court on Monday issued a warrant to produce Mondal, on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in connection with a money laundering case related to the cattle smuggling case in West Bengal. He was produced before the judge at Dubrajpur court in Birbhum district on the basis of a complaint by a TMC worker who claimed that he was assaulted by Mondal in May after learning that he may leave the party to join a rival outfit.
The judge remanded Mondal to police custody for seven days till December 27 following a prayer by the local police for 14-day custody of the TMC leader for investigation and reconstruction of the chain of events in connection with the case. The case was lodged under Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (causing grievous hurt) and 307 (attempt to murder) of Indian Penal Code.
Mondal's lawyer Moloy Mukherjee said that a bail prayer was not moved since the development was sudden. The police remand of Mondal effectively puts off any move by the ED for the time being to take the TMC leader to Delhi on the basis of the production warrant issued by a court there.
Mukherjee, who is also a TMC leader apart from being a lawyer, claimed that this case has nothing to do with the ED. Claiming that this matter will not hamper the ED case against Mondal, he said, "The production warrant is yet to reach Asansol jail." Public prosecutor Rajen Dey told reporters after the remand order that a case was lodged by the complainant on December 19 against Anubrata Mondal at Dubrajpur police station alleging that the TMC leader assaulted and tried to kill him in May this year.
Lodged in Asansol jail since August, Mondal was produced before Dubrajpur court where he returned after four months. Following the court order, he was taken to Dubrajpur police station to serve his police custody period. Mondal, the TMC's Birbhum district president and a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was arrested by the CBI in the cattle smuggling case on August 11. According to the ED, it registered the money laundering case following an FIR by the CBI in Kolkata in the cattle smuggling case.
