India’s financial crime-fighting agency on Monday arrested a state legislator from West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress party in connection with a teachers’ recruitment corruption case, officials said.

Jiban Krishna Saha, a lawmaker from Burwan constituency in Murshidabad district, was detained after hours of questioning for allegedly refusing to cooperate with investigators, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said. He is expected to be brought to Kolkata later in the day and produced before a court.

ED officers, backed by federal paramilitary forces, raided Saha’s home early on Monday. As officers closed in, Saha attempted to flee by scaling a boundary wall but was caught in a nearby field, officials said. Investigators also recovered two mobile phones that Saha allegedly threw into a pond during the raid.

Saha had previously been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in April 2023 during raids linked to the same case. He was later granted bail by the Supreme Court. On both occasions, he allegedly tried to destroy evidence by discarding mobile phones in water.

The latest raids also extended to Saha’s in-laws’ residence in Raghunathganj, Murshidabad, and to the home of a relative, Maya Saha, a municipal councillor in Birbhum district. Investigators also searched the residence of a relative of Prosanna Roy, an aide to former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who is already facing trial in the teachers’ recruitment scam.

The case centres on allegations that large sums of money were collected from job seekers in exchange for teaching posts in state-run schools. Several Trinamool leaders, including former education minister Chatterjee, have been arrested in connection with the scandal.

The Trinamool Congress has repeatedly accused federal agencies of being used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to target its leaders ahead of state and national elections.