Police, Central Forces Conduct 4-Hour Predawn Raid At Abhishek Banerjee’s Residence; TMC Cries Vendetta

Kolkata, Jun 13 (PTI) In a predawn raid certain to deepen the political faultlines in West Bengal, police personnel, accompanied by central forces, searched TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee's residence here for more than four hours on Saturday in pursuit of his close aide in an alleged financial fraud, officials said. The operation, led by a team from Paschim Medinipur's Salboni Police Station and assisted by Kolkata Police personnel, began shortly after 3 am and triggered a confrontation, with the TMC alleging "political vendetta" and BJP leaders insisting that investigators were merely following due process. Former chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee rushed to Abhishek's Kalighat residence and remained there for a considerable period as the search was underway at the house of her nephew. Police sources said the search was primarily aimed at tracing Banerjee's personal assistant Sumit Roy, who is wanted in connection with an ongoing investigation into a "financial fraud" case registered at Salboni Police Station. According to the sources, Roy's mobile phone was last traced to Banerjee's Kalighat residence, prompting investigators to launch the operation. The officials said the police personnel repeatedly knocked on the doors of Abhishek's residence but received no response. The TMC alleged that the police team broke open a lock and entered the premises to carry out the search. Coming out of the house after the operation, Banerjee accused the police of forcibly entering his residence. "They broke the lock and searched the entire house," he told reporters. Sources in the investigating team said Roy could not be located despite the extensive search. The premises in Kalighat's Patuapara area remained heavily guarded throughout the operation, with the deployment of central forces in the neighbourhood, while personnel from Kalighat and Bhabanipur police stations assisted the search team. The police officers, however, declined to disclose details of the case or the evidence they were seeking. Personnel, including women officers, participated in the exercise, which continued for more than four hours. At one stage, some officers briefly stepped out of the house for consultations before resuming the search. The investigators eventually left the premises in the morning, though it was not immediately clear whether any documents or materials had been seized. The operation came at a politically sensitive moment for Banerjee, who has found himself facing scrutiny from multiple investigating agencies over the past week. Just two days ago, the West Bengal CID questioned him in connection with the alleged forged-signature case linked to the state assembly. He has been summoned again on June 14 after investigators were reportedly dissatisfied with certain aspects of his responses. The Calcutta High Court, while directing Banerjee to cooperate with the probe, had observed that no coercive action should be taken against him for two weeks. On Friday, CID officers also visited his Kalighat residence to serve a notice in connection with a cyber complaint lodged over certain remarks allegedly made by him. Banerjee has been asked to appear before investigators on June 16 in that case. The Diamond Harbour MP was also asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on June 15 in connection with the agency's probe into the alleged primary school recruitment irregularities. The TMC reacted sharply to the police action. In a brief post on X, the party said, "Political vendetta gets from bad to worse." Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose alleged that police arrived at Banerjee's residence around 3 am and that a disaster management team was subsequently called in to break open a lock before the search began. Claiming that the operation covered the premises from the second floor to the terrace, Ghose said the search lasted about 90 minutes and alleged that the seizure report recorded "nil". "No evidence. No wrongdoing. Nothing," she wrote on X. Calling the operation an instance of "political vendetta, intimidation and mental torture", Ghose alleged that leaders unwilling to submit to the BJP were being selectively targeted. The BJP rejected the allegations, maintaining that "investigative agencies were functioning independently and that no individual was above the law". The latest episode has added another layer to Bengal's turbulent political atmosphere, where legal battles, agency investigations and political confrontation have increasingly intersected post-2026 assembly polls. For the TMC, the search has become another rallying point in its long-standing charge that opposition leaders are being subjected to selective targeting after its defeat in the assembly polls. For investigators, it was part of an ongoing criminal probe. But politically, the images of police and central forces entering the residence of Mamata Banerjee's heir apparent before dawn ensured that the operation resonated far beyond the confines of the case itself. (This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)