Calcutta police have arrested a person for his alleged involvement in a job racket where the complainant was falsely promised a job in the state irrigation department in 2019, when the current leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, had been the irrigation minister.

Rakhal Bera, a resident of Manicktala, was picked up by Manicktala police officers on Saturday night and produced in court on Sunday. He was remanded in police custody till June 12.

BJP sources said on Sunday that Bera used to be close to Trinamul as an aide to the Adhikari clan, but switched sides along with the former Trinamul heavyweight late last year.

“It is clearly an attempt to victimise Bera now, for being with the BJP, besides being a part of a larger conspiracy to fabricate cases of corruption and shame the Adhikaris. Attempts are on, on several fronts, to harass the Adhikari family,” said a BJP state unit functionary.

“We will fight this legally and politically,” he added.

Police said they had drawn up a case with the Manicktala police station, based on the complaint of Sujit Dey, a resident of Ashokenagar in North 24-Parganas.

“According to the complaint, sometime between July 2019 and September 2019, accused Rakhal Bera and co-accused Chanchal Nandi (yet to be arrested) had organised a purported government job camp inside a flat in Block B of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics Cooperative Housing Society on Manicktala Road,” said a senior official of the Eastern Suburban Division.

“They had collected Rs 2 lakh from the complainant in exchange of a job as group D staff in the irrigation department, but he never got any job,” he added.

Police during investigation have found that not only Dey, but many others from Calcutta and the adjoining districts have been allegedly defrauded in a similar way, with false promises of getting a government job.

A case was drawn up under the sections of cheating, forgery, fraud and criminal conspiracy,in February 2021.

During his court appearance at Sealdah court on Sunday, the public prosecutor said that as several people have been duped by the accused, there was a need to take him into police remand for 14 days.

Bera’s defence lawyer, however, questioned the timing and intention of the law-enforcing agency, asking why the arrest was made after a gap of two years from the date of the alleged cheating.

The magistrate, after hearing both the sides, sent Bera to police remand for a period of seven days. He would be produced before the court again on June 12.

Police sources said they would summon more people based on the statement of the accused.