VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Dec. 27: Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren is learnt to have submitted details of his assets to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the purpose of investigation. However, details of the disclosure are yet to be known but it is mostly believed that it contains details of assets that he declared in his election affidavit.
The ED had sought details of his properties during his questioning on November 18 when the ED summoned him to investigate his involvement in the stone mining scam. The agency had requested him to disclose whatsoever his assets— disclosed in the affidavits, income tax return or otherwise.
So far, the investigation of the illegal mining scam is concerned, the ED filed a chargesheet against his MLA representative Pankaj Mishra, power broker Prem Prakash and one Bacchu Yadav before the special PMLA court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma. The ED claimed that Prem Prakash in tandem with Kolkata -based businessman Amit Agrawal and Pankaj Mishra laundered proceeds of crime for Chief Minister Hemant Soren. The ED is banking on the statement of Ravi Kejriwal (former JMM treasurer) who said that he was aware of the fact that illegal stone mining was taking place under instruction of Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the proceeds of crime were laundered through various companies of Amit Agrawal.
The ED has examined accounts of many such companies of Amit Agrawal having huge transactions to the tune of Crores and the ED suspects these as cash trail of proceeds of crime of illegal mining.
The ED has gone on to state that IAS Pooja Singhal (currently in judicial custody in the MNREGA scam case) was given additional charge of the mining department due to her proximity with Amit Agarwal. It was consented between Hemant Soren, his media advisor Abhishek Prasad and Pankaj Mishra that Pooja Singhal would allow the mining operations to favored entities without any hindrance.
Again referring to the statement Ravi Kejriwal Hemant Soren once directed Pankaj Mishra that Amit Agarwal and Abhishek Prasad should not know the funds coming from the stone mining and sand mining from Santhal Parganas. Instead of this, Pankaj Mishra should directly hand over the funds in cash to Prem Prakash and he (Prem Prakash) would hand over the cash to Amit Agarwal.
