Kolkata: Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya’s aide Tapas Mandal on Wednesday corroborated the ED’s claim that money for “offline registration” by students at private teacher training colleges was sent to the former West Bengal Board of Primary Education chairman.
The agency had asked Mandal to come for questioning to the CGO complex with documents containing details of the Rs 5,000 that each student paid for offline registration. Mandal made the same statement, concurring with the submission the ED made in the PMLA court, to the media before his interrogation.
“People from Manik Bhattacharya’s office used to come and take the money deposited for offline registration,” he told mediapersons. When asked who had sent the people to his Mahisbathan office, Mandal said: “When people came from his office, it is apparent that Manik Bhattacharya had sent them.”
Mandal used to run the Minerva Educational and Welfare Society in Rajarhat. Apart from overseeing teacher training colleges, he was also president of All Bengal Teacher Training Achievers’ Association, the apex body of all private primary teacher training colleges in the state. Mandal was also seen at an event organized by Bengal Teachers’ Training Association.
The Minerva society came into focus when ED officials started digging into Acuere Consultancy Services, a company allegedly owned by Bhattacharya’s son Souvik. The firm, according to ED, had collected around Rs 2.6 crore from private teacher training colleges across the state.
ED officers had also learnt that money from an NGO was being parked on a regular basis in a bank account held by Bhattacharya’s relative. The NGO, also run by Mandal, oversaw six private teacher training institutes in the state.
ED lawyer Bhaskar Prasad Banerjee had last week submitted to a city court that private teacher training colleges charged each DLed student Rs 5,000 for “offline registration” when the online registration option existed. Investigators had said they suspected that a large chunk of the money made its way to the WBBPE ex-chairman and his family.
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