Kolkata: Two teams of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax are conducting simultaneous raid and search operations at the residence and offices of Kaustav Roy. He is a Kolkata-based businessman and the chief executive officer (CEO) of a popular Bengali news channel. Roy is also known for his close association with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
An ED source confirmed the raid, but refused to cite the reason for this development. Attempts to contact Roy for his comments failed as his mobile phone kept on ringing.
Roy was in the midst of controversy in May this year. It happened after the West Bengal government formed a committee for planning and monitoring of welfare and development schemes and made Roy, who has a debatable background, the chairman of the committee.
However, later Roy’s name was scrapped after then Governor Jagdeep Dhankar questioned the justification of Roy’s appointment in the crucial chair. Roy is involved in multiple sectors like computers, software and media.
In March 2018, he, as the director of ‘RP Infosystems’, was arrested by the CBI in connection with a Rs 515 crore bank fraud scam involving a consortium of banks, including Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Canara Bank. In September last year, a Bengali channel owned by Roy, received a caution of cancellation of licence from the Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting citing the Ministry of Home Affairs’ denial of ‘security clearance’.