A Bengal court on Thursday remanded former Trinamool Congress (TMC) councillor of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Debraj Chakraborty, to seven days in police custody in an extortion case, lawyers said.Chakraborty, who is among the new generation of TMC leaders following general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, was arrested by the state police’s Special Task Force (STF) on Wednesday (X)“The Barasat court in North 24 Parganas district remanded the accused in police custody for seven days in an extortion case. The court was told that he is an accused in a much bigger case of syndicated crime and needs to be interrogated,” the state’s special public prosecutor, Bibhas Chatterjee, said.Chakraborty, who is among the new generation of TMC leaders following general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, was arrested by the state police’s Special Task Force (STF) on Wednesday from an under-construction holiday resort near the Purulia-Jharkhand border.Chakraborty and his wife, former TMC legislator and popular singer Aditi Munshi, have been booked in several cases, including extortion, money laundering, criminal intimidation, possession of assets disproportionate to income, alleged involvement in post-2021 Assembly poll violence, and the illegal appointment of teachers, all of which are being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), an officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said.“His wife, who was granted anticipatory bail in June by the Calcutta High Court because she has a small child, was questioned for several hours on Thursday,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.“Chakraborty went into hiding after the high court denied him anticipatory bail on June 24. He visited several places in north Bengal before reaching Purulia. The STF found him by tracking the mobile phone of one of his close associates. As many as 10 real estate businessmen have so far filed complaints of extortion, criminal intimidation and assault against Chakraborty,” the officer added.The extortion case in which Chakraborty was arrested was filed in March, two months before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a landslide victory in the Bengal polls.The TMC did not comment on the arrest till Thursday evening.