After the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the minister, the Enforcement Directorate was allowed to take his custody for five days. The minister without portfolio, who was lodged in the Puzhal central prison, has been under the custody of ED since Monday night.
Sources in the Tamil Nadu government told IANS that Senthil Balaji was being interrogated for the third day. The ED has handed over a list of 200 questions to the minister and was taking time for his response.
According to sources, the minister was being questioned regarding the real estate deals he had undertaken. The ED sleuths had conducted searches at the residences and business units of some close accomplices of the minister and unearthed certain documents regarding real estate dealings.
Sources told IANS that the ED has in its possession around 60 documents pertaining to various land deals undertaken by the associates of the minister. The questioning on Wednesday is primarily intended to get more information from the minister on whether he had any links to these land transactions and whether money was handed over to his accomplices for the same.
The minister was taken into custody by the ED on June 14 in a case related to money laundering.
Senthil Balaji is accused of taking money in the job-for-cash scam involving an appointment to the state transport department while he was serving as a minister in the AIADMK government. Later Senthil Balaji switched his allegiance to the DMK and is presently a powerful force for the DMK in the Western belt of Tamil Nadu comprising Coimbatore, Erode, and Salem. He has worked to develop DMK into a major force in the area which was earlier an AIADMK fiefdom.
–IANS
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