Kolkata, Feb 10 (IANS) Kiran Khan and Chinmay Monday, the two influential coal traders who were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on Tuesday in connection with the multi-crore coal smuggling case in West Bengal, were remanded to ED custody till February 18 by a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata.
Mondal is the maternal uncle of Khan. Both have been involved in coal trading for quite some time. However, the investigating officials of ED had tracked that both were engaged in illegally procuring coal excavated from the coal mines in the coal belts of Asansol-Jamuria in West Burdwan district and selling it to different small factories operating both in West Bengal as well as in neighbouring states.
Sources aware of the development said that the uncle and the nephew used to procure coal illegally through different avenues. The first avenue was procuring coal excavated by different subsidiaries of public sector Coal India Limited (CIL) from different coal mines in the belt with the help of some dubious officials and staff of the public sector entities.
The second avenue is procuring coal illegally excavated from the different abandoned coal mines of CIL in the region. In fact, the region is notorious for frequent land subsidence, the sole reason for which is illegal mining from the abandoned mines.
It is learnt that although illegal coal mining was the main business for the uncle and his nephew, they have also been into sand mining and real estate businesses for the last few years.
Both Mondal and Khan were arrested early Tuesday morning after a marathon interrogation that started on Monday afternoon. Later in the day, they were presented at the special PMLA court, which ultimately remanded them to ED custody till February 18.
Last month, ED’s Director Rahul Navin came to Kolkata and sought details of the progress in the investigations into the high-profile financial irregularities cases in the state, including the one on coal smuggling.
The ED officials, last month, also conducted raids and search operations at the offices and residences of coal traders operating from the coal-belt in the West Burdwan districts, like Asansol and Jamuria. During the action, the ED officials had seized Rs 1.50 crore from the residence of a coal trader at Jamuria.
–IANS
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