RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, May 31: Congress party’s Poraiyahat MLA Pradeep Yadav reached the ED office this evening. The ED officials are questioning him regarding his property and investment besides involvement in money laundering if any.
An ED source informed that it was getting to 5 pm when the legislator reached the office.
On Tuesday the ED had simultaneously raided 16 locations in Ranchi, Dumka and Godda linked to him from eight o’clock in the morning. These included six locations in Ranchi and 10 locations in Dumka and Godda. The ED had also sealed his Ranchi residence.
In the raid, the ED got information about investment in movable and immovable properties besides some cash. The ED will now verify the related documents. In the raids conducted in Ranchi, raids were also conducted at the office of M/s Vaishnavi Construction and Supplier Pvt Ltd at Montessori Road HEC Colony, near the bus stand in Dhurva.
It is reported that Suchitra Devi is also an associate in this company, who is said to be the wife of a former MLA from Goh in Aurangabad district of Bihar. The second place in Ranchi is of Shiv Kumar. Shiv Kumar has been an Engineer in Ranchi for 15 years. He has a residence at Arvind Marg Krishna Nagar near the firing range in Bariatu.
This raid of ED has been done on the basis of inputs received in the raid of the Income Tax Department in the past. In this case, the ED has registered a new ECIR, in which ED’s investigation is going on. At that time, two lakh rupees were recovered from the place of MLA Pradeep Yadav, Rs 40 lakh from his close Godda hotelier Shyamakant Yadav, nine lakh rupees from Vinod Kumar Lal of Dumka during the Income Tax raid.
In the month of November last year, in the case of tax evasion of crores of rupees, the Income Tax Department raided 70 places belonging to three states of Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand for three days. In this raid, the Income Tax Department got Rs 2.10 crore in cash.
Benami property worth 100 crores was detected in this raid. Information related to investment in gold and silver jewellery, movable and immovable property worth crores was received. That raid of the Income Tax Department took place at the places of Bermo Congress MLA Kumar Jaimangal alias Anoop Singh, MLA Pradeep Yadav, Shah Brothers and their associates.
The ED has recovered Rs 60 lakh from Ajay Kumar Jha, a close aide of Yadav. Apart from this, about five lakh rupees have been received from Manoj Kumar Akela. He has just run away. He is a government employee. He is being described as Revenue Sub-Inspector. He used to take tenders in the name of his wife. The ED has recovered several digital devices including pen drives, which will be further probed.
