Scores of engineers and officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation have been spending hours over the last few days to identify properties owned by Trinamool Congress MP and the party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee and others in the family, sources in the civic body have said.

A section of engineers and KMC officials had to work even on Sunday, a holiday, to search for Abhishek’s properties.

Engineers and officials have been asked to scrutinise the civic body’s property records to identify assets linked to Abhishek, his parents or the company Leaps and Bounds. Sources said the exercise began last week.

Leaps and Bounds is a private company associated with Abhishek, which has allegedly figured in the teacher recruitment scam probe. Abhishek has denied the allegations, describing them as politically motivated.

Smita Pandey, the commissioner of the KMC, declined to comment on the issue when Metro called her on Sunday evening.

On Saturday, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said he had collected information from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation relating to 24 properties linked to Abhishek.

“Respected Bhaipo Babu, yesterday I obtained the property list from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The growth of your Leaps and Bounds (company) includes 24 properties in Calcutta,” he said at a political rally in Diamond Harbour, his first as a chief minister.

“You have a palace-like office in Amtala. What have you done? Do we not know what these goons (Jahangir Khan and others) did using the police?” he told the party workers’ meeting in Falta, the Assembly segment in Abhishek’s parliamentary constituency of Diamond Harbour, where a re-poll is scheduled for May 21.

The assessment department of the KMC maintains records of properties in the city, including owners’ names, details like size and area, and the annual property tax payable. Once the mutation process is completed, the owner’s name is officially recorded with the civic body.

According to sources, the assessment department examined its records to identify properties registered in Abhishek’s name and shared the addresses and premises numbers with the civic body’s building department. The building department then checked its records to verify whether the properties had approved building plans.

“Engineers were sent for a physical examination of the properties to see if there is any illegal construction or deviation from the plan approved by KMC,” said an official.

Officials conducting field inspections had to ring doorbells or knock on doors and ask residents, “which Abhishek Banerjee” owned the property.

“In one case in south Calcutta, the owner said he was not the Abhishek Banerjee being referred to after being told the reason for the inspection. In some cases, residents are not entertaining the engineers at all,” an engineer said.