SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, April 29: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) that began its probe with the illegal transfer of 4.55 acres of Army land in Ranchi has widened its net.
“The situation changed after we interrogated the land brokers and a revenue official post raids on 21 locations linked to ex-Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan on April 11. Several startling revelations have tumbled which need to be verified,” said a source in the ED.
No wonder the investigating agency has summoned Ranchi Sub-Registrar Vaibhav Mani Tripathy with a bunch of land documents on May 1 so that all the new inputs on the land scam could be verified.
Notably, the ED had raided the premises of Tripathy along with Sub-Registrar Ghasi Ram Pingua, businessmen Amit Agrawal and Vishnu Agrawal in November last year. “Since then, many new revelations have been made. So, we need to verify all of them before we reach a finality and submit our prosecution complaint (equivalent to a chargesheet) in the court,” said an ED source.
Also, the ED has raided half a dozen land dealers and realtors, including Shyam Singh Bhatia from Jamshedpur, Shekhar Kushwaha, Priyaranjan Sahay and Vipin Singh from Ranchi on the inputs received from the six land brokers, including Afshar Ali, Imtiaz Ahmed, Pradeep Bagchi, Md Saddam Hussain, Talha Khan, Faiyaz Khan, and Circle Inspector Bhanu Pratap. They had been arrested after raids on April 11. Bhatia is supposedly close to Ranjan, posted at present as Social Welfare director.
On April 24, the ED had also raided the official residence of Uday Shankar, a government employee presently attached with the chief minister’s office. The recovery of data from his mobile and several incriminating land documents are set to add to the scam proportion.
According to sources, the investigation agency wants to verify all the facts and information about the illegal transfer of Army, government and private land in Ranchi that took place recently, particularly during Chhavi Ranjan’s tenure as DC in Ranchi.
Now, it appears that the alleged grab of 4.55 acres of the Indian Army land at Bariatu in Ranchi was just the tip of the iceberg.
“We have received a large number of documents relating to sale and purchase of land occupied by the Indian Army and private individuals by several bigwigs. The possibility of fake and interpolated documents of these lands cannot be ruled out, so that the purchase and sale look correct. We want to verify all of them,” said a source.
“For the ED, it is not a routine investigation. So, it wants to connect all the missing links before reaching any conclusion,” said an official.
The interrogation of Additional Registrar Trideep Mishra in the Kolkata registry office, where the land papers were tampered, on May 2 will throw more light on the scam.
The five others who will be grilled on May 3 included Shyam Singh Bhatia from Jamshedpur besides Shekhar Kushwaha, Priyaranjan Sahay and Vipin Singh from Ranchi.
The ED will again grill Chhavi Ranjan on May 4 and Vishnu Agrawal on May 8.
Vishnu Agarwal, originally from Jhalda in Bengal, has a long history of bagging controversial land deals in Ranchi. In February 2018, he bought 3.75 acres of land from Mahua Mitra and Sanjay Kumar Ghosh and paid Rs. 24. 37 cr. This is a prime land located at Sirom Toli Chowk and this land is under the occupation of the Indian Army. Similarly, he had bought 9.3 acres of Khasmahal land in Kugru.
