Abhishek Banerjee had the police at his door at 3am on Saturday. When the door remained unopened even at 6.15am, the police broke the locks open at the main entrance and moved in.
The team from Salboni, West Midnapore, searched the entire three-storey building for Sumit Roy, an aide to the Trinamool Congress national general secretary, in connection with an alleged land fraud.
Abhishek was at home during the search, which went on for more than an hour. Before it ended, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee had reached her nephew’s Kalighat Road home.
The official seizure list said “nil”, suggesting the police did not find what they were looking for. Two witnesses to the search signed the “nil” seizure list at 7.36am.
Mamata left the house around 8am, after the police had gone. She made no comments to the media.
The search came less than 12 hours after a state CID team had arrived at the same gates and served a summons, directing Abhishek to face questioning over an allegedly inflammatory election speech.
In a separate case of alleged signature fraud, the CID has summoned him on Sunday for a second round of questioning. “The raid was conducted in connection with an ongoing investigation into an alleged land scam in Salboni,” West Midnapore superintendent of police Papiya Sultana told The Telegraph.
Sultana added: “We were looking for Sumit Roy to question him. There are reasons why the police raided that particular address. All formalities were followed, and the entire sequence of events was videographed.”
Sources in the West Midnapore police said Sumit’s name had come up during the interrogation of former Trinamool MLA Sujoy Hazra following his arrest this month.
Hazra was arrested for allegedly selling large tracts of government land in Salboni with fabricated deeds. Sources said the investigation threw up a financial transaction between Hazra and Roy amounting to more than ₹1 crore.
“Over the past few days, the location of his (Roy’s) mobile tower showed Abhishek Banerjee’s house in Kalighat Road,” a senior officer said.
“The mobile tower showed that particular location between 12.30am and 10am over the last few days. We decided to visit this address in Calcutta to get Roy so we could bring him to the nearest police station and question him.”
Roy remained untraced till late Saturday evening. The police said they would move court to secure a warrant against him.
“My entire house was searched,” Abhishek said. “They broke the locks of the house for their search.”
A disaster management team was requisitioned to break open the locks on a grille gate and the main entrance, a police source said.
Mamata did not comment, but the ripples of the early morning police search at Abhishek’s home were felt across the political spectrum.
Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said the raid was a “disgraceful attack on an Opposition leader”.
“Just political vendetta, intimidation and mental torture. Operation Lotus is targeting every leader who refuses to surrender to the BJP’s diktat,” Ghose posted on X. “Disgraceful attack on an opposition leader. Vindictive, conniving, scumbag low life tactics. Shame.”
In Calcutta, BJP leader Locket Chatterjee said that “one has to pay” for one’s misdeeds.“Abhishek Banerjee is the past. People have put him in the past. Looth korle shasti petei hobe,” she said.