On Wednesday, Rujira Banerjee the wife of Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in New Delhi in connection with the coal pilferage scam. Rujira requested the officials to visit her residence in Kolkata instead and cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason behind her inability to appear in Delhi.
The ED had summoned Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira last month to Delhi in relation with the alleged coal scam case in West Bengal. Moreover, in February earlier this year, she was interrogated by the CBI at Rujira’s Kalighat home before the Assembly polls in Bengal. Rujira’s relatives were also questioned.
“This refers to summons dated August 18, 2021 asking me to appear in person in New Delhi on September 1. I am a mother of two infants, and travelling to New Delhi physically alone in the midst of the pandemic will put me and my children at grave risk,” Rujira said in a letter addressed to ED’s assistant director Sumat Prakash Jain.
The probe is based on the CBI’s FIR which was registered in November last year regarding alleged mass coal pilferage in Eastern Coalfields Limited mines in Kunustoria and Kajora regions of West Bengal.
Anup Majhi also known as Lala, is said to be the prime suspect in the case. The CBI has conducted several raids on his hideouts in the past few months, the central agency has also raided properties linked to him or his associates as part of the probe.
Earlier, when Rujira was summoned by the CBI in connection with the coal smuggling case, Mamata Banerjee visited the residence of her nephew Abhishek in south Kolkata’s Harish Mukherjee Road minutes before the CBI team landed there. The TMC supremo was at Abhishek’s house for around ten minutes.
Earlier, two woman officers of the CBI also visited the residence of Menaka Gambhir, Rujiras’s sister, in Kolkata to examine her in connection with the same case. Gambhir was questioned for nearly three hours.