Kolkata: in a major development, the police have seized unaccounted cash amounting to 1.44 crore from a private English-medium school located in the Kanchrapara area of North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. The massive recovery was made following a midnight raid that concluded around 4:30 AM on Thursday. Along with the stacks of cash, the police also recovered a packet of condoms from a cupboard inside the school’s medical ‘sick room’. Following discrepancies in their initial statements, the school’s cashier, Abhik Nath, and assistant accountant, Sayan Ghosh, have been formally arrested.
The matter came to light when Sudipta Das, the local MLA from Bijpur, was compiling a comprehensive database of educational institutions within his constituency. His representatives flagged suspicious activities regarding the school’s administration, prompting the MLA to visit the campus on Wednesday night. Realizing the scale of the irregularity, he immediately summoned the local police. Given the sheer volume of hard cash found on the premises, multiple currency-counting machines had to be brought in over the course of the night to determine the exact amount.
Political Links Alleged
Commenting on the raid, MLA Sudipta Das drew parallels to past high-profile corruption scandals in the state, noting that following the infamous cash seizures from former minister Partha Chatterjee’s residence, large sums of money are now being stashed inside educational institutions. Das leveled serious allegations against local political figures, claiming that the seized cash does not belong to the school. He alleged it is the unaccounted black money of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders Kamal Adhikari, Subodh Adhikari, and Partha Bhowmick, who supposedly used the school premises as a safe haven out of fear of raids by central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Furthermore, the MLA pointed out that Kamal Adhikari, the former president of the Kanchrapara Municipality, previously served as the chairman of the school’s management committee. However, Kamal Adhikari, Subodh Adhikari, and Partha Bhowmick have not yet released any official statement responding to these allegations.
School Administration Defensive
On the other hand, the school’s principal, Bikash Chandra Pal, strongly defended the institution, claiming that the seized funds completely comprised legitimate admission fees. He stated that the money had been accumulating since the start of the admission process in April and was in the process of being deposited into the bank, adding that the accounting department holds a complete ledger for every rupee. When questioned about the presence of a packet of condoms in the students’ medical room, the principal claimed to be completely unaware of how the item got there.
The police have registered a case and initiated a thorough investigation to trace the definitive source of the money and determine why such a vast sum of cash was kept on the school premises instead of being banked. Law enforcement authorities stated that the entire matrix of the operation will become clear once the forensic and financial audits are completed. This incident comes just a week after a similar shocking discovery at Surendranath College in Kolkata, where a suitcase packed with termite-damaged currency notes, along with weapons and contraceptives, was recovered from a student union room cupboard.
