Key Highlights
- (Image: India Today/File) Shounak SanyalNew Delhi,UPDATED: Jan 9, 2026 11:30 ISTThere was high drama on a chilly Thursday afternoon in Kolkata as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided I-CAP properties in Kolkata and the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, spirited away a bunch of documents and folders.
- The fast-paced developments in Kolkata have parallels with a CBI raid and subsequent arrest of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
- Unlike Mamata, the Trinamool Congress chief, Indira didn't try to escape with documents that could have given her a tough time.
- A pasta maker, belonging to Indira's daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, came handy, according to some accounts. advertisementThe drama of October 3, 1977, when CBI officers knocked on the former Prime Minister's doors, has been documented by American author Katherine Frank in her book Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. Late afternoon that day, as Indira's elder son Sanjay Gandhi and his wife Maneka were enjoying a game of badminton, an unmarked car pulled up to 12 Willingdon Crescent, which was then the residence of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
- From the unmarked car, emerged two Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers, who marched to the door, met Indira Gandhi, and announced that she was under arrest.
