Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, Anubrata Mondal, who was arrested in August for cattle smuggling has reportedly won at least three lotteries in the past apart from his lottery prize of Rs 1 crore in January of this year according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Last week, the jailed TMC leader was questioned by the CBI investigators in Asansol jail about the lottery which he reportedly won in December 2021. The questioning lasted for one and a half hours.
While Sukanya Mondal’s bank account was being checked it was found that two further winning amounts totaling Rs 51 lakhs were reportedly registered, too. Moreover, the CBI found connections that suggested lottery winnings of Rs 51 lakh had been moved from Mondal’s bank account to his daughter Sukanya’s in two phases, sometime in 2019 – Rs 25 lakh at first and Rs 26 lakh later.
Sukanya Mondal won the lottery twice in 2019 according to CBI sources. It was discovered Anubrata Mondal had also won Rs 10 lakhs from another lottery in 2019. Though it wasn’t announced at the time, the money was transferred to his bank account.
The vendor of the Nagaland State Lottery’s “Dear Lottery” asserted that Mondal was not the purchaser of the winning lottery ticket, which carried a jackpot value of Rs 1 crore when the CBI interrogated him.
“I sell tickets in local villages. I can’t remember who bought it but it was certainly not Anubrata Mondal,” Sheikh Munna, the seller of lottery tickets for “Dear Lottery” told the reporters when leaving the CBI office after interrogation.
In his dealings with the local media, Mondal rejected the lottery company’s assertion that he had won the top prize when it issued a newspaper advertisement with his picture in January of this year.
Due to his alleged involvement in a case of cattle smuggling, Anubrata Mondal is currently detained in Asansol jail. The ED has interrogated his daughter Sukanya in relation to this matter three times so far in Delhi.
The CBI is investigating whether there is any link between the lottery winnings and the cattle smuggling case.
