‘Rs 60 crore irregularities’: ED seizes documents after 24-hour search at TMC MP Nadimul’s Kolkata office
Times of India | 9 September 2026The ED teams reached Haque’s offices in Kolkata and Ranchi and his New Delhi residence around 6.30am on Monday. The agency registered an ECIR based on an FIR filed by the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate relating to alleged illegal cash transactions and funding from unknown sources.
Haque, a journalist and businessman, is director of a company that publishes Urdu daily Akhbar-E-Mashriq. He was in Ranchi on Monday on an official trip with the Parliamentary Committee on Government Assurances and returned to Kolkata on Tuesday. Sources said ED officials collected documents from him.
The search at Haque’s official Delhi residence, which also serves as a TMC party office, ended around 10.20pm. TMC claimed the search was completed by 1pm, but officials remained on the premises for several more hours. ED officials left Haque’s Kolkata publication office around 4am on Tuesday.
TMC on Tuesday described the searches as part of “Operation Lotus 2.0”, alleging they were aimed at pressuring party legislators who refuse to defect. Party sources claimed a former functionary had attempted to pressure Haque, but the MP refused to yield.
Questioning the allegations against Akhbar-E-Mashriq, a TMC MP asked whether circulation disputes justified a 12-hour search at his Delhi office. The MP also alleged investigators recorded the statement of a person who does not know Urdu. On the cryptocurrency allegations, the MP said Haque’s financial transactions were legitimate and his taxes were paid.
ED officials suspect Haque is linked to cryptocurrency trails involving over 300 Bitcoin transactions, with alleged irregularities worth Rs 60 crore. Investigators reportedly found transfers of 307 Bitcoins to private wallets and a Rs 1.5-crore cash entry without corresponding physical cash. An ED official said, “This is how proceeds of crime are concealed and kept outside the formal banking system,”
TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien said, “This is pure vendetta to divert attention from students who lost their lives in the Delhi building collapse.”
O’Brien also alleged ED officials threatened staff over access to the Delhi office and claimed Haque was targeted due to his religious identity. “Because Nadimul Haque is a Muslim, he has been targeted. In Bengal, BJP is doing the same. We will write to the (Rajya Sabha) presiding officer,” he said.
