New Delhi, Jul 14 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Thursday that it has arrested seven accused persons, including then senior officials of Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), in connection with fraudulent misappropriation of coal from the coal reserve of leasehold areas under the dominion of ECL.

The accused have been identified as Tanmay Das, the then chief manager-cum-HOD (security), ECL HQ, Debashis Mukherjee, then security sub-inspector, ECL Kajora, Sushanta Banerjee, then GM, Satgram ECL, Subhas Chandra Moitra, then project officer, Nimcha Group of Mines, Mukesh Kumar, then manager (security), ECL HQ, Rinku Behera, then security SI, and Abhijit Mallik.

A case was registered on November 27, 2020 on the allegations that the public servants of ECL, including security personnel, unknown officials and a private persons, entered into a conspiracy and fraudulently misappropriated coal from the coal reserve of leasehold areas under the dominion of ECL and also from the coal stock parked in the railway sidings for sale and supply.

The accused had obtained undue advantage in the form of bribe and facilitated misappropriation of coal from ECL leasehold areas and corresponding railway siding and thereby extended undue protection and patronage to the illegal coal syndicate being run by the said private person.

Earlier, the CBI had conducted searches at various places in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh at the premises of the accused persons.

All the seven arrested persons were produced before a special court in Asansol, West Bengal, which remanded them to five-day police custody.