WB school teachers' recruitment 'scam': ED attaches assets of expelled TMC functionaries
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New Delhi: Assets worth more than Rs 15 crore of expelled TMC youth wing leaders Kuntal Ghosh and Santanu Banerjee and another person have been attached in connection with a money laundering probe into the alleged West Bengal school teachers' recruitment scam, the ED said on Friday.
The attached properties are in the form of bank accounts, shares, mutual funds, residential flats and land, the agency said in a statement. The total value of the provisionally attached assets, seized under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, is Rs 15.03 crore.
They belong to accused persons Ghosh, Banerjee and Ayan Sil who "acted as agents in the illegal collection of money from aspiring candidates for the posts of primary teacher", it alleged. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier arrested the three and Sil is an alleged associate of Banerjee.
Former TMC leader and West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee, his alleged associate Arpita Mukherjee, TMC MLA and former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya and Sujay Krishna Bhadra, considered to be close to the TMC top brass have also been arrested in the case.
Chatterjee was also suspended by the TMC after his arrest by the ED.
Two more accused -- Souvik Bhattacharya and Satarupa Bhattacharya -- were sent to judicial custody by a special PMLA court in Kolkata after they appeared before it following the filing of a chargesheet (prosecution complaint) by the agency against them. A total of four charge sheets have been filed by the ED in the case till now while the total seizure and attachment of assets stands at Rs 126.70 crore.
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Death toll from Israeli strikes in northeast Lebanon rises from 8 to 24, Lebanese news agency says
Deir al-Balah, Nov 1: Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon, the country's news agency said, raising the death toll from eight there.
It was the latest deadly toll in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah escalated last month.
Israel's military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah's military infrastructure.
Lebanon's state National news Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across country's northeast, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted house.
Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region in Baalbek-Hermel region, said that 60,000 people have already fled their homes in the area due to Israeli bombardment.
