The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren for interrogation in a money laundering case, an official said here on Tuesday. He has been asked to depose on August 14 at the federal agency’s office here and record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the official said.
He is expected to be questioned in an alleged defence land scam case. The 47-year-old Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was interrogated for over nine hours by the ED in November last year in another money laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state. Neither Soren nor his office has reacted to the fresh summons.
BJP MP from the state Deepak Prakash Tuesday demanded Soren’s resignation alleging that he was involved in the defence land scam in connivance with corrupt bureaucrats of the state.
Claiming to have been the first to have exposed the defence land scam, he said “We had requested the ED to investigate the case. Today, the result is that after the illegal mining case, the Jharkhand chief minister has been summoned by ED in connection with money laundering with respect to land held by the Army and others.
The central probe agency is investigating more than a dozen land deals, including one related to defence land, wherein a group of land mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly connived to forge deeds and documents of as long back as 1932.
A special PMLA court has already sent Jharkhand IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, arrested by ED to jail. The ED interrogated Ranjan for around 10 hours on April 24 in connection with its probe into money laundering in the alleged illegal land deals.
Ranjan was briefly questioned by the agency on April 13 as well when searches were carried out at his premises and those of some others in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. The ED arrested several people, including a Jharkhand government officer, after the raids.
