Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Hemant Soren was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday after over seven hours of questioning on money laundering charges in an alleged land fraud case, sources said.
Before his arrest, Soren tendered his resignation as Jharkhand chief minister to Governor CP Radhakrishnan at the Raj Bhavan and was then taken to the ED office in Ranchi. Soren will be replaced by JMM leader Champai Soren as the chief minister.
Sources claimed 48-year-old Soren was “evasive” in his replies during his questioning and hence was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED is expected to produce Soren before a special PMLA court in Ranchi and the agency will seek his remand for custodial interrogation, the sources said.
The sources said the agency put across 15 questions to Soren during the second round of questioning in the case. He was first quizzed on January 20. The JMM leader was shown the typed statements he recorded with the agency and before taking him in custody, his signatures were sought on these documents.
It was, however, not clear if he signed them. The allegations of money laundering against the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader pertain to the alleged illegal possession of certain immovable assets apart from his purported links with members of the ‘land mafia’.
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What Is Land Scam Case?
The investigation is linked to a “huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia” in Jharkhand, according to the central probe agency. The ED has so far arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011-batch IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan who served as the director of the state’s Social Welfare Department and deputy commissioner of Ranchi.
An employee of the Jharkhand land revenue department, Bhanu Prasad Prasad, was also arrested by the agency in the case. The ED is probing the alleged “huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/ bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores’.
Blow to Federalism: Congress
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said “forcing” Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to resign after putting the Enforcement Directorate against him is “a blow to federalism”.
Targeting the government over the development, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that agencies such as the ED, CBI and the I-T Department “are no longer government agencies, now they have become BJP’s ‘eliminate opposition cell’.”
In a post in Hindi on X, Congress chief Kharge said, “The one who did not go with (Narendra) Modi ji will go to jail. Putting ED against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and forcing him to resign is a blow to federalism.” Intimidating opposition leaders by making the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) draconian is part of the BJP’s toolkit, he alleged. The BJP’s work of destabilising opposition party-led governments one by one as part of a conspiracy is continuing, the Congress chief further alleged.
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One More Feather of Corruption in Cap of INDIA Bloc: BJP
After Hemant Soren stepped down as Jharkhand Chief Minister following daylong questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, the BJP on Wednesday dubbed him “one more feather of corruption” in the opposition bloc INDIA’s cap.
Reacting to the development, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla wrote on X, “One more feather of corruption in cap of ‘INDI Alliance’ from Jharkhand.”
The BJP leader also used the opportunity to target Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and said, “There was a time (when) Kejriwal used to demand arrest of Lalu, Soren, Sonia. These days he defends them because he himself is (the) mastermind of Sharab Ghotala (excise policy scam).” The ED has issued a fifth summons to the Delhi chief minister for his questioning in the excise policy linked money laundering case, official sources said Wednesday.
(With PTI inputs)
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