Denying any Trinamool Congress association with two suspected agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), party secretary-general and State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said the Opposition was “concocting allegations” against the ruling party.
Three ISI agents were arrested here on Sunday and two were allegedly Trinamool workers.
These workers, however, were expelled from the party a few months back, the party claimed.
“They [suspected ISI agents] are not associated with the Trinamool Congress. Now that the party is in power, many join the party at the grassroots level and then they are regarded as party members...the Opposition is trying to cook up an issue,” Mr. Chatterjee told The Hindu on Monday.
Among the three ‘ISI agents’ arrested on Sunday, Irshad Ansari, a contract worker for the last 10 years, was a member of the Trinamool-affiliated Contract Workers Union at the shipbuilding factory in the port area.
Another accused, Asfaq Ansari, is a former general secretary of the Trinamool-controlled union at the Harimohan Ghosh College in the Garden Reach area in west Kolkata. Both of them are accused of passing of “incriminating information.”
Referring to Asfaq Ansari, Mr. Chatterjee said he was “forced to resign” as the students’ council general secretary of Harimohan Ghosh College by the students. “He [Asfaq Ansari] had left the party long back.”
A city court on Monday remanded the three suspected ISI agents in police custody for 14 days.
Irshad Ansari, Asfaq Ansari, and Mohammed Jahangir were produced in court.
