Overview
- Former West Bengal minister Indranil Sen was taken into custody by Kolkata Police on Wednesday after hours of questioning at the Enforcement Directorate’s Salt Lake office and was brought to Lalbazar for further interrogation.
- The ED and Kolkata Police are probing MassArt Society for allegedly selling paid preview and privileged-entry passes between 2022 and 2025 while falsely invoking a UNESCO link, with investigators’ preliminary estimate of proceeds near ₹50–60 crore.
- Investigators say MassArt sold large volumes of premium tickets — reports cite prices roughly between ₹1,749 and ₹5,499 and more than one lakh tickets in 2023–24 — and that funds were allegedly siphoned through cash withdrawals and suspicious accounting.
- The ED has flagged about ₹30 lakh transferred from Sen’s firm Octave Records to Mamata Banerjee’s account, a payment Sen described as ‘royalty,’ and the agencies have carried out searches of Sen’s Kasba residence and a Singur property.
- Sen was denied anticipatory bail by the Calcutta High Court, has moved the Supreme Court, will be produced in court for custody hearings, and the probe’s next steps include forensic accounting and possible wider scrutiny of other beneficiaries and festival bodies.