Assadullah Biswas, ‘fake currency kingpin, terror financier’ & former Trinamool leader

Biswas, whose assets the ED attached last week, is named in 35 criminal cases but has been arrested only once, in 2016, and is out on bail.

Investigative agencies say Malda, and neighbouring Murshidabad district, have become hubs of a fake Indian currency racket | Wikimedia commons

Kolkata: Assadullah Biswas, 47, is accused of a wide spectrum of crime — from rioting, abduction, murder, attempt to murder, extortion, arson to terror funding and even two Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act cases.   

He is also being investigated by a host of agencies — the West Bengal CID, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).   

But despite being named in 35 criminal cases, of which chargesheets have been filed in 27, Biswas has never been convicted and has been arrested only once — when he allegedly led a mob that assaulted policemen and set fire to the Kaliachak police station in September 2016.  

The former Trinamool Congress leader has managed to stay off the radar for over seven years, amid allegations that he enjoyed political patronage, but he is now firmly in the spotlight after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 31 January attached his assets worth Rs 4.67 crore at Kaliachak in West Bengal’s border district of Malda. 

The ED claims that Biswas is one of the alleged kingpins of a Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN) racket at Kaliachak, infamously known as the counterfeit capital of the country. 

The ED was led to him after probing the money trail in connection with a FICN case registered by the NIA in March 2017. 

Sources in the ED, however, allege that the state police never forwarded the fake currency note cases against him to the directorate, which is mandatory procedure. 

The ED also claims that the recent attachment of his properties has blown the lid of the much-spoken-about fake Indian currency racket operating from Malda, located at India-Bangladesh international border, and a criminal-politician nexus behind the thriving business.

Such is the extent of the racket in Malda and neighbouring Murshidabad that the NIA has opened an office in Malda.  

Who is Assadullah Biswas? 

Biswas is a former member of the Trinamool Congress-run Panchayat Samiti in Malda district. He was known to be close to the CPM earlier. As the party’s red bastion made way for the TMC, he switched sides. 

Biswas campaigned for TMC candidates during the 2016 assembly elections. 

The 47-year-old has allegedly dealt with fake currency, narcotics, arms and explosives. 

He was arrested in September 2016 after the mob incident at the Kaliachak police station but according to a court document accessed by ThePrint, he was granted conditional bail and was barred from entering Malda as the NIA pleaded that he was ‘influential’ and ‘might tamper’ with evidence.   

A senior West Bengal police official said that he now lives in Murshidabad. 

Assadullah’s advocate in the Calcutta High Court, Rajdeep Majumdar, told ThePrint, that the trial in the case, for the incident at the police station, is pending. “He was granted bail in January 2018 after serving his term for a year. The trial is still pending,” Majumdar said. “However, we are not aware of Biswas contesting the case against ED for the attachment.”

Talking to The Print, a Trinamool Congress leader said, “He was with CPM earlier and we never knew his criminal antecedents. But now the law will take its own course and there is no question of protecting him.”  

Faking RSBY cards 

The ED also claims that Biswas is the kingpin of an insurance racket involving the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a central government scheme that provides health insurance to unorganised sector workers belonging to the BPL category. 

“Despite having nearly three dozen criminal cases against him, Biswas managed to get a license to start a nursing home in Malda too. He cloned the Aadhar cards of poor patients and claimed the insurance money from the government,” said a senior official of the directorate.   

He added that Biswas made fake insurance claims from the National Insurance Company worth Rs 2.57 crore and the third party auditor is learnt to have given him a clean-chit.

“Trinamool Congress never took action against him till he set the police station on fire. To douse the resentment among police personnel, he was arrested,” said Khagen Murmu, the BJP MP from Malda. “But he is free now. That’s the extent of influence he has. He is known as a terror here.”