Kolkata, March 25 (IANS): Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a notice to West Bengal Minister of MSME and Textiles Chandranath Sinha to appear for questioning this week in connection with the cattle smuggling case.

Sources said that on March 22, the ED sleuths raided the residence of the state minister at Bolpur in Birbhum district and at the end of the raid the minister’s mobile phone was also seized by the investigating sleuths.

After extracting the data from the mobile, sources added, the sleuths have secured some crucial documents related to the case. Following this the ED had felt the necessity to interrogate Sinha, known to be a close confidant of party strongman Anubrata Mondal, who is currently in judicial custody at Tihar jail in New Delhi in the cattle smuggling case.

During the raid and search operations, sources said, the ED sleuths also recovered cash worth over Rs 41 lakh from Sinha’s residence. Since the minister then could not give any satisfactory answer about the source of this huge cash, sources added, the ED sleuths will also interrogate him in that matter once he appears at the central agency’s Salt Lake.

On the day of the raid and search operations, the minister, however, denied detailed comments on the cash recovery issue. “Let ED make claims on what they have recovered. But I will not make any comment on it,” he said.

It is learnt that ED has informed the Election Commission about the cash recovery considering the model code of conduct is in place throughout the country. The matter will also be brought to the notice of the Income Tax department.