CBI raids Mamata's senior-most minister in municipal job scam

Firhad Hakim, West Bengal's Minister of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, who is also the mayor of Kolkata, was raided by the CBI on Sunday for more than nine hours in connection with a cash-for-jobs scam in as many as 60 municipal bodies in the State. Hakim is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's senior-most Minister and the Muslim face of the Trinamool Congress party.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

Another former Minister and MLA Madan Mitra's two establishments were also raided. Mitra is an MLA from Kamarhati in the northern outskirts of the city and is believed to wield considerable influence in the civic body affairs of the region.

After more than nine hours of CBI raids, Hakim lashed out against the BJP for "misusing Central agencies to arm-twist the Opposition" and demanded that the agency should reveal in court what evidence of the so-called "scam" it has managed to unearth from the search operations. "The municipal scam is a fictitious charge that the BJP is trying to rake up," the Mayor said. "Am I a thief? Why am I being targeted again and again? BJP can do anything it wants but I will not leave my party or my ideals," he added.

CBI personnel carried out simultaneous raids with heavy CRPF presence at 12 places in Kolkata and other towns at properties belonging to Trinamool Congress leaders in connection with the cashfor-jobs scam which came to light when the Enforcement Directorate was probing another scam.

A large number of TMC workers initially assembled outside the residences of the two leaders who protested the agency's move, calling it the Centre's vendetta unleashed and intensified on Opposition parties after the formation of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.