New Delhi, Feb 20 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) was on Monday conducting raids at multiple locations across Chhattisgarh in connection with the coal mining case.
A source said that all the locations belong to various Congress leaders.
“Premises belonging to state party treasurers Ram Gopal Aggarwal, state PRO R.P. Singh, labour committee President Sushil Sunny Aggarwal are being raided,” the source said.
Several arrests have already been made in the case. Chhattisgarh chief minister’s former Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasia was arrested in December, 2022. Senior IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi was arrested in November 2022. Suryakant Tiwari, a businessman was taken into custody in October 2022. Apart from these some other arrests, including Sunil Agarwal of Indramani Group, have also been made by the ED in the case.
In December, the ED had attached movable and immovable properties worth Rs 152.31 crore belonging to Suryakant Tiwari, Saumya Chaurasia, Sameer Vishnoi, Sunil Agarwal and others in the matter.
Ranu Sahu IAS, was reportedly missing but she wrote a letter to ED in October and told the officials that she was on medical leave. Later ED had conducted search operations at her mother’s house in the third week of October.
Bishnoi was questioned by the ED officials regarding alleged commission of Rs 25 per ton of coal which would be taken out from mines.
Earlier also, the ED had raided locations in Chhattisgarh for two consecutive days and had recovered around Rs 4 crore.
The Income Tax had earlier written a letter to the Chhattisgarh government in which it was alleged that a few officials very close to the Chief Minister were involved in getting commission/bribe from coal and other businessmen. However, no action was taken by the state government in this respect.
–IANS
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