Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) early on Wednesday conducted searches at locations linked to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s press advisor and other officers over their alleged involvement in the illegal mining case, news agency PTI reported quoting officials.
About a dozen locations in the state are being raided by the central agency under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, they said. The premises of Abhishek Prasad alias Pintu, collector and SP of Sahibganj district, ex-MLA Pappu Yadav, some jail department officials and a police constable are being searched, the sources said. The central probe agency has issued summons to the Jharkhand CM multiple times seeking his availability for questioning in the matter.
Notably, this comes a day after Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad resigned from his membership of the Assembly, triggering speculations in the state political circles as it came just a day after the ED issued its seventh summons to the Chief Minister.
In response to the ED’s sixth summons on December 12, Soren had sent a letter to the agency, stating that in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s preliminary inquiry – based on a complaint lodged with the Lokpal – all his assets and those of his family had been disclosed.
Soren also said he was being called in for questioning by the ED only because “he doesn’t belong to any political party in power at the Centre”. “Issuance of repeated summons is actually malice and part of a political conspiracy to destabilise a democratically elected government. The undersigned shall readily provide any information or documents which you may bona fide require and which are not already available with you, provided you are entitled to seek the same in accordance with law,” the CM wrote to the ED.
On its part, the ED has maintained that “the issue is not about disclosure of personal assets of Hemant Soren but about the investigation of the assets representing proceeds of crime (in land scam case)”.
The agency has arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011-batch IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, who had earlier served as the director of the state social welfare department and deputy commissioner of Ranchi. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was questioned by the ED in November last year in another money laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state.
