Kolkata 6 August : From Friday evening, cell 2 of the ward number 22 of the Presidency Central Correctional Home has been transformed into the home of the former heavyweight West Bengal minister and the Trinamool Congress’ virtual second-in-command, Partha Chatterjee.The prison authorities have refused to grant any form of particular or preferential treatment for him as a former minister. However the officials of the Alipore Women Correctional Home which is where Chatterjee’s close assistant in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment fraud, Arpita Mukherjee had been placed, has shown an equivocal attitude towards her.
Prison Department sources said that the cell of Chatterjee does not have a chair or cot.Chatterjee on Friday night, was provided with two blankets, just like the other prisoners and two of which he used as mattresses, and the other two were used as pillows.The cell is equipped with an air conditioner for the ceiling.
Contrary to this, Arpita Mukherjee has been given with an even bigger and airy room as well as a an additional mattress in Alipore Correctional Home.”This space was used primarily to conduct vocational training to our female inmates.There was a strict instruction by the court of Public Money Laundering Act that the greatest attention should be placed on the safety of the inmate and the basic facilities for her.The staff at the jail are keeping an eye on her all hours of the day,” said a state Correctional Department official.
In the evening of Friday, Chatterjee was offered chapatis and vegetables that he consumed without a reaction.In the morning of Saturday, he was offered tea and bread, just like the other prisoners which he also refused.
For lunch, he consumed lentils, rice and vegetables.
In contrast, even though Mukherjee was not eating the dinner menu on Friday night, she had breakfast and lunch on Saturday.
Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee use the same toilets that are available to prisoner in the respective Ward.The most common feature in both of them is that both have been completely silent since they were transferred to correctional facilities on Friday night.
On Friday, following the PMLA Court ordered 14 days of custody in a judicial manner for the pair, Trinamool Congress’ state General Secretary and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh was open about the possibility of special treatment given to Partha Chatterjee.”If I learn that he receives some special treatment, then I’ll make my protest once more,” he said.
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