A section of police inspectors, who served as the officers-in-charge at several important police stations in the coal belts of the Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate between 2023 and 2025, are under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly operating a coal-smuggling syndicate, sources in the agency said.

The ED had arrested the inspector of police, Manoranjan Mondal, on Thursday night on charges of operating a coal smuggling syndicate in Asansol and Durgapur in the past one and a half years.

ED sources said police officers, who were under the scanner, and some real estate developers had been running the syndicate between 2023 and 2025. The sources have said Manoranjan and another police inspector, who is now on compulsory waiting, were allegedly leading the syndicate and used to deal with coal smugglers in connivance with two former Trinamool Congress legislators in West Burdwan district.

Those police inspectors are now serving as OCs in Bankura, Murshidabad and
Barrackpore.

The ED arrested Mondal after he failed to respond satisfactorily to the investigators during interrogation at the CGO complex in Calcutta.

The ED court in Calcutta on Friday remanded Mondal in ED’s custody for seven days.

The ED had summoned Mondal, who is believed to have fled to Nepal, seven times since February, but he did not turn up even once. The ED has been probing the multi-crore coal scam in Bengal since 2020.

Since February, the ED has also raided the residences of several businessmen in Durgapur and Asansol for their alleged links with the coal-smuggling syndicate and seized some documents.

In January, the ED officers raided Mondal’s residence in Durgapur and questioned him for nine hours. Some important documents and bank transaction details were seized at that time.

ED sources said they found transactions of ₹7 crore of unaccounted money in the bank accounts of Mondal and his wife till now. The ED has also recovered important WhatsApp messages from the police officer’s mobile phone.

Mondal was posted as the OC of the Budbud police station when the raids took place and was transferred to the Special Branch (SB)
soon after.

The ED claimed the money had been transferred from the bank accounts of two real estate developers — Chinmoy Mondal and Kiran Khan — as protection money for running the coal-smuggling racket unhindered.

Chinmoy and Kiran had been arrested in February for their alleged coal-smuggling link. The ED sources said Chinmoy and Kiran were close associates of the alleged kingpin of the coal smuggling syndicate, Anup Majhi
aka Lala.

“They used to invest unaccounted money earned from coal smuggling in real estate development in Durgapur and Asansol. They also used to run the coal smuggling syndicate in Asansol and Durgapur on behalf of Anup Majhi,” said a source.

The sources said they had traced transactions of around ₹150 crore of unaccounted money from the bank accounts of the two real estate developers.

The ED claimed the unaccounted money was earned through a coal-smuggling syndicate that operates in Asansol and Durgapur.

The ED sources said that apart from running a coal smuggling syndicate, Mondal had also arranged postings at important police stations for his selected police officers in exchange for money.