Bengali film actress and model Arpita Mukherjee told the Enforcement Directorate on July 28 that she had no idea of the quantum of cash and valuables stashed away in two of her Calcutta apartments, including Rs. 27.9 crore seized, as Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee would never allow her to enter the locked rooms. A bedroom and an attached washroom of Arpita’s flat in Club Town Heights at Belghoria in Calcutta yielded the cash stash and Rs. 4.31 crore worth of jewellery which the ED seized in the latest raid. On July 23, the ED had seized Rs. 21.9 crore cash, Rs. 54 lakh in foreign currency and gold worth Rs. 74 lakh from her flat in South Calcutta.
Arpita repeatedly broke down and pleaded innocence when ED officials asked her to disclose other properties she owned where the proceeds of the jobs-for-cash scam in the school education department might be stored. Partha Chatterjee is said to be the mastermind of the scam, and Arpita is said to be his close associate.