Mamata Banerjee Intervenes in ED Raid on IPAC Sites

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee intervened in an Enforcement Directorate raid on Thursday, seizing documents from the residence of a political consultancy firm official in Kolkata, as tensions escalated between state authorities and central investigators probing alleged money laundering linked to coal smuggling.

The raids targeted premises connected to Indian Political Action Committee, or IPAC, a firm that has managed election campaigns for Banerjee's Trinamool Congress party. Enforcement Directorate officials searched six locations in West Bengal, including IPAC's office in the Salt Lake area and the nearby residence of co-founder Pratik Jain, as well as four sites in Delhi. The operation stemmed from a 2020 Central Bureau of Investigation case against a coal smuggling syndicate accused of illegally extracting coal from Eastern Coalfields Limited leasehold areas in Paschim Bardhaman district. Investigators alleged that proceeds from the smuggling, involving tens of crores of rupees through a hawala network, were routed to IPAC.

According to the Enforcement Directorate, the searches proceeded peacefully until Banerjee arrived at Jain's Loudon Street residence around...