Bengal cops detained 3 Jharkhand MLAs after cash was found in their vehicle on Saturday(FILE)
West Bengal CID claimed that Delhi Police on Wednesday morning allegedly detained and restrained its team from conducting a search operation in the national capital.
The alleged incident took place when the CID sleuths were conducting a raid at a property belonging to a man closely associated to one of the three Jharkhand MLAs arrested in a cash seizure case.
CID is describing this man as an accused in the case, besides the arrested legislators.
Four CID officers – an inspector and ASI each and two SIs -- were detained and restrained from conducting search at the man's residence in South Campus Police Station area in New Delhi despite having a court warrant, a senior CID officer said.
The West Bengal government is sending a team of three senior officers -- one ADG and two IG rank officers -- to Delhi, another officer in the state Home Department said.
Three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand -- Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Bixal Kongari – were arrested by West Bengal Police after over Rs 49 lakh in cash was seized from a car in which they were travelling.
"On Wednesday morning, a team of West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers was restrained by Delhi Police from carrying out a search operation at a property of an accused person closely associated with an arrested MLA in the cash seizure case despite having a court warrant," the senior CID official told PTI.
"They had gone to the national capital in connection with the probe into the cash seizure case. This restraining is completely illegal," he said.
The CID claimed that preventing the sleuths from carrying out the raid will "lead to the disappearance of crucial evidence by the suspects" and held the Delhi Police responsible for that.
"The case involves seizure of huge cash from 3 MLAs of Jharkhand. Detaining & preventing the CID WB team to conduct lawful search will lead to disappearance of crucial evidence by the suspects responsibility of which will lie on the DP officers who prevented the search. @CPDelhi," the CID tweeted.
On Wednesday morning, CID sleuths arrested businessman Mahendra Agarwal, who had allegedly supplied the seized cash to the three MLAs, from in front of his residence off EM Bypass, an officer said.
The CID has claimed that the cash seized from the three MLAs was delivered to them by Agarwal through hawala.
Incidentally, on Tuesday, the agency detectives had raided Mr Agarwal's office at Lalbazar area of Kolkata and seized Rs 3 lakh in cash, several bank passbooks and around 250 silver coins.
Mr Agarwal had been missing since the arrest of the three MLAs.
The Congress, which is a part of the JMM-led government in Jharkhand, alleged that the BJP was trying to topple the Hemant Soren government by offering Rs 10 crore each and a ministerial berth to MLAs.
The party has also dragged in the name of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in the alleged conspiracy, but these allegations were rubbished by the BJP, which claimed that the grand old party was trying to hide its own corruption after the cash was found.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)