Bolpur, Aug 12 (PTI) A day after TMC’s Anubrata Mondal was arrested by the CBI in connection with a cattle smuggling case, his two-storey home in Bolpur town wore a desolate look on Friday, with just a stray cow seen loitering nearby, oblivious of the frenetic developments over the last few days.
On the roof of the blue-coloured building, a handful of people were seen dismantling a tent which, locals said, had been set up for a yagna on the occasion on Independence Day.
The entrance door and the numerous ornate windows lay shut, with an eerie silence pervading the road adjoining his home in Nichupatti locality.
“At any given day, had Kestoda (Mondal’s nick name) been around, you would have seen scores of vehicles crammed on both sides of this lane, and people coming in and out of his ground floor office. We had never thought he would be picked up this way. Now even his loyalists are nowhere to be seen,” one of his neighbours said.
The scene outside Mondal’s house was in stark contrast to what it was the day before when a crowd has gathered as central security force personnel barricaded the house before CBI whisked him away following a search conducted at the residence. Across the lane, in tea stalls people in hushed tones discussed about the dramatic turn of events on Thursday morning and how it could impact the political equations in the town, where proverbially “not a leaf falls without his permission”.
“Kestoda used to be the last word, not just in Bolpur, but the entire Birbhum. He knows the whereabouts of every single trader, hawker, and permanent resident of Bolpur. It is shocking to see how fate changes, that too in a matter of hours,” a garment store owner near the residence said.
Mondal was arrested from his residence in Bolpur in Birbhum after an hour-long interrogation and was remanded in CBI custody till August 20.
The ruling TMC, during the day, took out a rally at Bhagabanpur area in Paschim Medinipur district in protest against the “vendetta politics” allegedly being pursued by the BJP-led central government by “using probe agencies”.
Around 500 rallyists, many of them women, shouted slogans against the Narendra Modi government and displayed placards which sought to know why similar action was not being initiated against “corrupt BJP leaders”.
The saffron party organised a counter rally in Barjora area of Bankura district, led by Bishnupur MP Soumitra Khan, where hundreds of activists danced to the accompaniment of drums to celebrate Mondal’s arrest.
“Finally Anubrata Mondal, who was known for his terror and intimidation tactics, got what he deserved. We thank the CBI. More such arrests of TMC heavyweights will follow soon,” Khan said.
Mondal, whose political career had been marked by controversies and off-the-cuff remarks, skipped his scheduled appearance before the central probe agency twice earlier in the week, citing ill health as reason. PTI SUS RMS RMS
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