Kolkata, March 20 (IANS) The Kolkata Police recovered a large amount of cash from the boot of a vehicle at New Town in the northern outskirts of Kolkata on Friday.

As per the instructions of the new Commissioner of Kolkata Police, security arrangements have been tightened amid the Assembly elections, and “naka” checking arrangements at important junctions in and around the city, which are under the jurisdiction of the city police.

A senior city police official said that in the morning, a vehicle was stopped by the police personnel posted at a naka check-post near City Centre-II in New Town. Barring the driver of the vehicle, who had been identified as Suresh Thakur, no second person was in the vehicle.

It is learnt that the driver was hesitant when the police asked him to open the boot of the vehicle. On being insisted, he opened it, and the cops saw a bag there. After opening the bag, the cops found that it was packed with bundles of cash, all in Rs 500 denominations.

The police started questioning the driver about the source of the money. However, when he was unable to give any satisfactory answer, the police confiscated the cash and arrested the driver.

He is now being questioned about the owner, who is trying to track the source of the cash, and who was the beneficiary, the city police official said. The total cash seized from the bag was Rs 25 lakh.

This is the third major cash recovery in West Bengal in the current week.

Earlier on March 19, the police recovered a total of Rs 11.75 lakh during similar “naka” checking at two different locations, the first being at Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district and the second being at Alipurduar Chowpatty Crossing in Alipurduar district.

Sensing use of illegal cash in the forthcoming polls to allure voters, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has already appointed 294 general observers for the state, thus making West Bengal the only among five poll-bound states and one union territory to have one general observer for each of the 294 Assembly constituencies in the state.

Apart from that, the ECI has also appointed 188 police observers, the highest among these five poll-bound states and one UT, and 100 expenditure observers, the second-highest on this count.

--IANS

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