India's top probe agency has raided the properties of Bengal Law Minister Moloy Ghatak in connection with a coal smuggling case.
Sources told UNB on Wednesday that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was conducting searches in seven properties belonging to the Minister in the cities of Kolkata and Asansol.
The raids come a day after the senior Minister in Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet tweeted to say that the country's state of affairs "is horrifying" under "Home Minister Amit Shah's watch".
The alleged scam pertains to the sales of illegally mined coal, worth thousands of crores of rupees, the proceeds of which were shared by a nexus of politicians and those operationing the racket.
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Ghatak is the third senior politician of the state's ruling Trinamool Congress party to face the heat of the federal probe agencies.
In July, Partha Chatterjee, then Bengal Commerce and Industry Minister, was held in connection with a school jobs scam. Subsequently, Anubrata Mondal, another Trinamool Congress politician, was arrested by the CBI in a cattle smuggling case.