Tight security at ED's Kolkata office ahead of Rujira Banerjee's appearance

Kolkata, June 8

Security has been tightened at the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) office in Kolkata ahead of Rujira Narula Banerjee's appearance on Thursday for interrogation in connection with the multi-core coal smuggling case in West Bengal.

The Central Government Office (CGO) complex in Salt Lake, where the ED office is located, witnessed heightened security arrangements involving top officials of the Bidhannagar City Police to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, entry of outsiders to the complex has been restricted for the day.

Even those employed at different offices in the CGO only got entry after producing their identity cards.

Rujira Narula Banerjee, the wife of Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, was supposed to appear by 11 a.m.

However, till the time the report was filed she had not turned up at CGO Complex.

A special team of ED officials has arrived in Kolkata from the probe agency's national headquarters in New Delhi for the interrogation.

Rujira Narula Banerjee will be questioned on certain financial transactions that have surfaced during the course of investigation.

On Monday, she was stopped by the immigration department at the Kolkata airport from boarding a Dubai-bound aircraft citing a lookout notice by ED.

Soon after that, she was served a notice by the ED to appear before it on Thursday 11 a.m.

Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Santanu Basu has described the entire development as reflection of vendetta politics by BJP and the Union government where even an innocent housewife had not been spared.

"The central agencies are being used by BJP out of its frustration, unable to combat Trinamool Congress politically," Sen said.

The BJP's national vice president and the party Lok Sabha member Dilip Ghosh said that the time for summons and interrogation are over.

"The people of West Bengal now want to hear the news of arrest," he said.