Kolkata, June 11 (IANS) Cash amounting to Rs 1.44 crore was recovered from a private English-medium school in Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas district, police said on Thursday.

The recovery was made after a search operation was launched at the school on Wednesday night. Till 4 30 a.m. on Thursday, 1 crore 44 lakh rupees were found. Apart from the cash, a packet of condoms was also found in a cupboard in the school’s ‘sick room’, said the police.

The police said two people have been arrested in connection with this.

After the new government took over in the state, MLA from Bijpur Sudipta Das started creating a ‘data bank’ of educational institutions in his Assembly area. The MLA’s representatives got information about this school. After that, Das reached the school at night and called the police.

During the search, cash was recovered, for which a counting machine was brought to the school at night. Later, more money-counting machines were brought in, in view of the size of the cash.

Das said, “Money was found from former state minister Partha Chatterjee’s residence. Now, cash was found in the school. There have been allegations of irregularities here. After that, this incident was detected today.”

The MLA also said, “This money does not belong to the school. It is the black money of Kamal Adhikari, Subodh Adhikari, Partha Bhowmik — all Trinamool Congress leaders. What is understood now is that they hid so much money in this school out of fear of ED and CBI raids. Where did this money come from?”

The MLA claimed that Kamal, former chairman of Kanchrapara Municipality, was the president of the management committee of this school. However, no official response was received from Kamal, Subodh or Partha

School principal Bikash Chandra Pal claimed that the recovered cash is the admission fee. The principal also claimed that he does not know how the condoms reached the school’s ‘sick room’.

He said, “The money received for admission had been accumulating since almost April. That money was supposed to be sent to the bank. The accounts section will look after the money.”

According to police, the source of the recovered money and how such a large amount of cash came to the school are being investigated. The administration believes that the matter will become clear once the investigation report is made public.

According to sources, after the recovery of this money, the school cashier, Abhik Nath and assistant accountant Sayan Ghosh were arrested by the police after inconsistencies were found in their statements during interrogation.

This development comes a week after a suitcase full of termite-infested money was recovered from the cupboard of the student union room at Surendranath College in Kolkata. Weapons and packets of contraceptives were also found then.

–IANS

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