KOLKATA: In a massive crackdown on Wednesday, Income Tax (I-T) officials conducted raids at five places across Kolkata, which include the residence of West Bengal Power and Housing Minister Arup Biswas’ brother Swarup Biswas in south Kolkata’s New Alipore in connection with suspicious financial transactions involving two real estate companies — Eden Real Estate and Multicon Real Estate.The taxmen also searched the New Alipore borough office of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) from where Swarup’s wife Juin Biswas was elected as a councillor.Besides, the central agency raided a businessman’s house in Parnashree in Behala in connection with tax evasion.Sources in the I-T department said the raid followed the agency’s surveillance on the two real estate companies for the past two months. “While pursuing the footprints of the real estate companies’ financial transactions, we suspected Biswas’s link with the source of the fund,” an I-T Dept official said.Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had summoned Arup Biswas in connection with a Rs 1,900 crore money laundering case involving the Alchemist Group.The Election Commission of India (ECI) had recently announced roping in federal agencies like the I-T Dept and ED in the electoral process to trace suspicious financial activities.In recent crackdowns by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against alleged corruption by TMC functionaries, several heavyweights of the Bengal’s ruling party, including former education minister Partha Chatterjee and food and supplies minister Jyotipriya Mallick were arrested and put behind bars.
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