Recruitment corruption: CBI raids Kalighat Kaku Sujay Krishna Bhadra's house

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carried out parallel raids and search operations on Thursday at the residences of a Trinamool Congress leader and a bureaucrat in the multi-crore recruitment scam in state-run schools in West Bengal.

The first team raided the residence of former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee's executive assistant, Sukant Acharya, in New Barrackpore, while the second team searched the house of Trinamool Congress loyalist Sujay Krishna Bhadra in Behala, Kolkata.

Bhadra, who is known to be close to the top leadership of the Trinamool Congress, has been previously interrogated by the central agency officials. The CBI sources stated that all the doors of his house have been locked from inside, and the local Kalighat police station is present on the spot to maintain law and order. The search operation is still ongoing, and some important documents have been recovered.

The recruitment scam involved the collection of money from candidates for appointment in state-run schools, with Kuntal Ghosh, a youth leader expelled from the Trinamool Congress, revealed to have collected the money and delivered it to his aunt in Kalighat. The aunt, identified as Sujay Krishna Bhadra, had allegedly played a crucial role in the illegal appointment of candidates.

In addition, CBI officials have recorded a confidential statement from Pankaj Bansal, executive of the optical mark recognition (OMR) sheet manufacturing unit, NYSA, who allegedly supplied OMR sheets to be used in the recruitment examinations for teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal state-run schools. The CBI referred to the raids and searches as part of their ongoing investigation into the recruitment scam.