The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal was questioned by the CBI on Saturday in relation to a Rs 1 crore lottery win in January. According to sources, the CBI was interested in learning whether Anubrata had genuinely bought the winning lottery ticket and, if so, how he used the winnings. The interrogation went on for nearly one-and-a-half hours.
A senior CBI officer said, “We wanted to cross-check his statements with those of the ticket seller and the others whom we have examined.”
The lottery was known as ‘Dear Lottery’ and was issued by Nagaland State Lottery. The CBI officers, on Friday, questioned the lottery seller if he had sold the lottery ticket to Anubrata Mondal. The vendor reportedly informed the CBI that he doesn’t remember giving Anubrata any lottery tickets.
The CBI officer said, “It is vital to know whose lottery ticket was it, who won the first prize and how did it reach Anubrata. At different levels, money had changed hands and he was at the center of all these transactions.”
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari previously alleged that TMC has been laundering money via lottery after TMC MLA Vivek Gupta’s wife won a bumper prize earlier this year while also claiming that TMC have some link with the lottery company.
Currently, Anubrata Mondal is in Asansol jail for his involvement in cattle smuggling. The CBI raided his house on August 31 and later arrested the TMC leader and kept him in custody. According to the CBI, the Border Security Force (BSF) had seized over 20,000 cattle heads between 2015 and 2017 as they were smuggled across the border.
