School jobs scam: CBI retrieves TMC MLA's mobile from pond; grilling continues for 3 days

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Sunday fished out from a pond a mobile phone of Trinamool Congress MLA Jiban Krishna Saha who has been facing a marathon interrogation at his residence in West Bengal’s Bardhaman district by the agency since April 14. A CBI official said Saha had thrown his two mobile phones into the pond adjacent to his house around 30 hours ago and one of them was retrieved after pumping out all water from it.

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However, the second phone is yet to be found. Experts were at work to retrieve the data stored in the recovered device, the official added. "We are leaving no stone unturned to find out the other mobile," he said. Interrogation of the TMC MLA of Bardhaman is continuing since Friday noon. He managed to throw away the mobile phones into the pond when CBI detectives were at his house. CBI officers seized at least five bags, full of documents, from a garbage dumping site near Saha’s residence, he said.

On May 15, CBI officers conducted searches in six locations, including those of the chairperson of a trust having B.Ed and D.El.Ed colleges and the premises of another person, in Kolkata, Purba Medinipur and Birbhum districts. Another team of CBI sleuths on April 15 raided the house of former TMC block president Bibhas Adhikari in Birbhum district for his alleged involvement in the school job scandal.

The scam related to the recruitment in state-run and-aided schools is being probed by the central probe agencies on the instructions of the Calcutta High Court. Two more CBI teams conducted raids at the residence of another accused Gopal Dalapati in Purba Medinipur district. The central agency officers also raided the flats of his wife Haimonti Ganguly in the Haridevpur area in Kolkata and also in Howrah district, he said. Former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and his aides are currently in custody and are being probed in the scam.