NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to appear before in on August 24 in connection to a land grabbing case. Earlier, Soren was asked to join the probe on August 14, which he skipped and sought more time from the agency. Previously, the Chief Minister was questioned in connection with the illegal mining case for around 10 hours along with his wife at ED’s Ranchi office.
In the land grabbing case, the ED has arrested 13 people, including an IAS officer. On July 8, a raid was conducted at the residence of Soren’s legislator representative Pankaj Mishra. The ED found had a checkbook linked to the Chief Minister’s bank account, after which his name was connected to this case.
Mishra has been arrested. A surprising aspect in the case is that the accused used documents from 1932 to wrongfully seize people’s lands and would tell the victims that their lands had already been sold by their fathers or grandfathers. The accused deceitfully took possession of the lands given on lease to the army and also fraudulently sold them elsewhere.
The probe agency seized a large number of fake deeds from their possession. When the ED conducted a forensic examination of the seized documents, it was revealed that all the documents were forged. The districts’ names that did not exist before independence were mentioned along with pre-independence documents, and the PIN code from the 1970s was used in old documents.
There were allegations of aiding IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, and as a result, the ED conducted a raid on her and later arrested her. Although the case is from Jharkhand, its ramifications extend to Bihar and Kolkata.
Bureau Report
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