Dev, born Deepak Adhikari, the Bengali actor and All India Trinamool Congress MP, has been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for interrogation on Tuesday, February 15 in connection with an ongoing cattle smuggling case.
Dev, who began his acting career in 2006 with the Bengali film Agnishapath, has worked in over 40 films till now. In 2014, he won the Lok Sabha elections as a TMC candidate from Ghatal constituency in Medinipore district in West Bengal and became a Member of Parliament. He won the seat once again in 2019.
The case in questions concerns cattle smuggling along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border. The CBI is currently investigating the alleged involvement of several Border Security Force (BSF), Customs and police officers, smugglers, and politicians in this operation.
In November 2020, the CBI first arrested Bengal-based cattle trader Enamul Haq for allegedly running the money-spinning cattle smuggling racket. It was reportedly during the interrogation and cross-examination of Haq’s accomplices that Dev’s name came up.
A summon has thus been issued to the actor seeking his deposition before the investigating officers at CBI’s Kolkata office at Nizam Palace.
However, TMC spokesperson Biswajit Deb claimed that Dev is the victim of political conspiracy. “The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been using CBI and other central probe agencies against TMC leaders to exert pressure. It did not work in the assembly polls. Now they are using CBI in view of civic body elections. Dev has become a target,” he said.
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Besides Haq, the CBI had also arrested BSF commandant Satish Kumar over his alleged involvement in facilitating the smuggling of cattle. During Kumar’s tenure as the commandant of the 36th battalion of the BSF in Malda district from 2015-17, the border force confiscated more 20,000 cows but the persons behind the racket were allegedly let free. The cattle seized by the BSF were then sold in Bangladesh, according to the CBI. As per the investigation so far, the BSF and customs officials diminished the prices of the cattle seized by the border-guarding force so that a small group of traders participating in the auction could buy them at a very low price.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet in the case in February 2021.