The SSC scam in West Bengal and daily recoveries of cash and gold from the residences of close aides of Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee have kept the state on tenterhooks, with people amazed at the wealth amassed by the leader and his associates.
However, if there is one place where residents are having a hard time stomaching the recoveries, it is the Club Town Society in Belghoria where Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee — arrested in the state school jobs recruitment scam — owned two houses.
Residents of the society spent sleepless nights as they watched trunks of valuables being seized from the houses.
“We were awestruck. We can’t believe how so much money can be kept at somebody’s residence. I remember we met this lady in 2019; she has two flats here. We asked her for ‘pujo’ contribution of Rs 5,000. She said she couldn’t pay that much but would try. However, we never got the money. Not only this, from January 2022, she has outstanding dues of Rs 60,000 as maintenance charge. When we saw her photos on TV the other day, we realised the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths may come here too," Kallol Sinha Roy, president of the society, told News18.
Other neighbours added that Mukherjee wasn’t friendly with them so no one knew much about her.
Like the media, residents of the society were equally excited to keep tabs on the notes being counted at Mukherjee’s house.
The excitement could be compared to that during elections, when every vote counted is broadcast live. People were glued to their TV sets to learn the amount recovered while some kept tabs on WhatsApp and Facebook to know the “final score".
The incident also led to banter on social media as people questioned which part of the state would register maximum recoveries.
A netizen named Arnab Ghosh put up a meme asking who was ahead — South Kolkata’s Tollygunge (where Rs 22 crore was recovered) or North Kolkata’s Belghoria (which was raided on Wednesday) — inviting bets from users.
On the other hand, many were enraged with the scam and its related recoveries, with a netizen terming it a “nightmare". User Anuttama, a psychologist, wrote on Facebook: “The city was awake and witnessed a nightmare… What a shame."
Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment