ED Raids at I-PAC: Mamata Alleges Job of 'Nastiest' Home Minister

Kolkata: The battle between BJP and Trinamul Congress for power in West Bengal witnessed an unprecedented escalation dramatically on Thursday when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided two key addresses of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), the political consulting firm of the state's ruling party, in the city to probe the coal smuggling scam on money laundering charges but chief minister Mamata Banerjee foiled it with all of her might in a counter raid on the central agency.

The two locations were the residence of I-PAC co-founder and director Pratik Jain at a housing apartment on Loudon Street in South Kolkata and the firm's office at Sector V in Salt Lake. As soon as Ms Banerjee heard about the ED’s action in the morning, she stormed the locations, one after another, with a heavy police force, disrupted the raids and ensured recovery of loads of important documents and gadgets, including laptop and mobiles, by the cops.

Her first destination was Mr Jain's address where Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma already trooped in with a huge contingent of cops who had encircled the housing complex. The TMC supremo walked into the building at around 12 pm and came out with a packet of files after 15 minutes.

She alleged, “It is most unfortunate that ED raided my IT sector’s office and IT-in-charge’s house to collect all of our party hard disks, candidate list, plan and strategy. Is it the duty of the ED and Amit Shah, the most nasty home minister and naughty home minister who can not protect the country? He is taking away all my party documents!?”

Ms Banerjee claimed, “If I also raid the BJP office, what will be the result? They don't have any guts and so are collecting all the information of my party because of the election. See, I have brought them with me. I also rang up Pratik.” She later rushed to the I-PAC office at the 10th floor in Godrej Waterside of Salt Lake with her government’s bureaucrats, ministers, MLAs and state director general of police Rajeev Kumar, in tow.

While she spent the next three hours there, cops were seen carrying bunches of documents and storing them in her car. Ms Banerjee later called the ED raids a ‘crime’ of looting at a “political party office and not a private organisation”. She also described I-PAC as an ‘authorised’ arm of TMC and threatened a “befitting reply by the people” while announcing a statewide stir against the ED raids.

Ms Banerjee will hit the streets in a protest rally on Friday from Jadavpur to Hazra. Three FIRs have been lodged against ED over the raids. One of them was filed against at Electronic Complex police station under the Bidhannagar Commissionerate in Salt Lake over the raid at I-PAC office in Sector V. Two others were registered at the Shakespeare Sarani police station about the raid at Mr Jain's residence. In one of them, the complainant is a police officer who accused the ED officers of physically misbehaving with him and his colleagues and no intimation of the raid. Another was lodged by Mr Jain for trespass and physical restraint at his flat.

It was stated, “Investigation revealed that one hawala operator linked to layering of proceeds of crime of coal smuggling had facilitated transactions of Tens of Crores of Rupees to Indian Pac Consulting Private Limited. The persons linked to generation of coal smuggling proceeds, hawala operators and handlers are covered in PMLA search on 08.01.2026. IPAC is also one of the entities linked to Hawala money.”

The central agency added, “During today's action, 6 premises in West Bengal and 4 premises in Delhi are covered. During the search, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South Kolkata and Officer in Charge of Sarani Police Station came to one of the premises along with 01 personnel to verify the identity of the officials. The Commissioner of Police, Kolkata also entered the premises shortly thereafter along with several officers of Kolkata Police. They were briefed about the proceedings by the Authorized Officer who also showed him his identity card.”

It also pointed out, “Proceedings were being conducted in a peaceful and professional manner, till the arrival of West Bengal Chief Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee along with large number of police officials. Ms. Banerjee entered the residential premises of Prateek Jain, and took away key evidences including physical documents and electronic devices.”

According to the ED, “The CM's convoy then proceeded to I-PAC's office premises, from where Ms. Banerjee, her aides, and the state police personnel forcibly removed physical documents and electronic evidences. The above actions have resulted in obstruction in ongoing investigation and proceedings under the PMLA. It is clarified that the search is evidence based and is not targeted at any political establishment. No party office has been searched. The search is not linked to any elections, and is part of regular crackdown on money laundering.”

Mr Jain and TMC also moved the HC against the ED. Leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari and BJP also slammed Ms Banerjee's role.