Former West Bengal minister Indranil Sen was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a cheating case.
The former tourism and culture minister in the previous TMC government appeared before the Enforcement
Directorate (ED) at its office in Kolkata today in connection with its probe into alleged financial irregularities in holding Durga Puja preview shows and the sale of passes, a senior official said. He was questioned earlier several times in connection with the case.
Sen, his wife Madhuchhanda and his associates are currently under the agency’s scanner for alleged financial irregularities committed by MassArt Society in managing Durga Puja ‘preview shows’.
The accused allegedly collected large sums of money from the public for passes for ‘privileged puja entry’ through the organisation between 2022 and 2025 by “falsely claiming to be a UNESCO-sponsored entity, and subsequently utilising those funds for personal gains”.
MassArt Society — a company, sources said, was set up soon after Durga Puja received the UNESCO recognition of intangible cultural heritage in 2021 — has Madhuchhanda Sen as its president, Dhrubajyoti Bose as secretary, Sayantan Mitra as vice-President and Ranjan Chatterjee as treasurer, the ED said.
The case originated from a complaint lodged by one Jaideep Mukherjee at Bowbazar police station in Kolkata.
An FIR was registered on the basis of the complaint, following which the ED initiated its own investigation.
The investigating agency had earlier also conducted searches at multiple locations linked to Sen, including his residence in Kasba and his garden house in Singur in Hooghly district.
According to preliminary estimates by the ED, the alleged financial irregularities could involve Rs 50-60 crore.
The complainant alleged that an impression was created about direct association with, or approval from, UNESCO, although the organisation had entered into no such commercial agreement.
Sen had earlier approached the Calcutta High Court seeking anticipatory bail, but his plea was rejected. He subsequently challenged the order in the Supreme Court.
