LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Ranchi, Feb 23: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday intervening night arrested billionaire chief engineer of the Jharkhand government Virendra Ram after 48 hours of questioning.
Virendra Ram will be produced before the special PMLA court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma in Ranchi and the ED is set to seek his police remand as Virendra Ram committed money laundering to the tune of Rs 125 crore.
“His police remand is required as he was involved in a very high-level organized kind of corruption. He raised huge disproportionate assets and made investments in his name as well as his relatives. Investments have been made through various shell companies. Such high-level corruption can’t be one man’s job,” well-placed sources said.
The ED has continued the detention of his relative Alok Ranjan and he is being questioned. There is no confirmation whether Alok Ranjan will also be arrested. But well-placed sources said that Alok Ranjan was actively involved in the commissioning of the offense. Besides, he was the named accused in the FIR lodged by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2019 when Rs 2.67 crore were recovered from the possession of Alok Ranjan and engineer Suresh Prasad Verma.
Virendra Ram served as chief engineer of the rural development and water resources departments and he has been enjoying this prime posting for the last eight years.
The raid was started on Tuesday morning in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Delhi premises of Virendra Ram. Besides, raids were carried out against a contractor Atikullah, chartered accountant Mukesh Mittal and others.
The ED detained Virendra Ram on Tuesday morning at his Ranchi residence.
During the raid, the ED team seized Rs 30 lakh cash, jewelry worth Rs 1.50 crore, housing properties at Defense Colony and Chhatarpur in Delhi. These are the undisclosed assets. One such housing property he had purchased at Defense Colony in the name of his father Gangaram to the tune of Rs 4 crore. The actual market price of his housing assets in Delhi are over Rs 40 crore.
