Kolkata, April 25 (IANS) Just four days before the crucial second phase of the two-phase Assembly polls for 142 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal on April 29, the officers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), escorted by the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel, are conducting raids and search operations at multiple locations of Habra in North 24 Parganas district, in connection with the ration distribution case.

Sources aware of the development said that different teams of the ED officials left the agency’s Salt Lake office on the northern outskirts of Kolkata early on Saturday morning and started for Habra.

Their destinations were the residence of three rice-traders and rice-mill owners namely Sagar Saha, Partha Saha and Rajib Saha, all known to be close confidants of the local Trinamool Congress legislator from Habra Assembly constituency and former West Bengal Food & Supplies Minister, Jyotipriya Mallick, who was himself arrested by the ED earlier in connection with the PDS case and had to spend a substantial period behind bars.

Mallick is currently out on bail and also re-contesting the West Bengal Assembly elections from Habra again this time, polling for which will be held on April 29.

Of the three places where the ED officials are conducting raid and search operations are Sagar Saha’s residence at Srinagar in Habra and Rajiv Saha and Partha Saha’s residences at Subhash Road, which is adjacent to the Deshbandhu Park, also in Habra.

Incidentally, a few months before the previous 2021 Assembly elections, 175 vehicles packed with rice and wheat were being smuggled into Bangladesh through the Ghojadanga border in Basirhat, when the Border Security Force personnel seized those vehicles.

Sources said that Saturday’s raids and search operations were in connection with that incident.

Recently, the ED officials also questioned the actress-turned-politician and former Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member from Basirhat constituency in North 24 Parganas district, Nusrat Jahan, in the same matter.

–IANS

src/rad