VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Dec 16: The Special PMLA court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma in Ranchi has directed the superintendent of the Birsa Munda Central Jail Hamid Akhtar to explain the reasons behind the denial of the CCTV footage of the inside of the jail to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the purpose of investigation.
The court has directed the jail to file the reply by December 21. Notably, the court had directed for the physical appearance of the jail superintendent after the ED informed the court that the jail administration denied access to footage of the relevant periods despite the order of the PMLA court.
“We have very solid evidence that some of the undertrials of the ED who are very influential have violated the jail manual and they interfered in our investigation. This is a very serious matter for which we need CCTV footage of inside the jail for a specific duration. But the jail administration is not cooperating,” a top ED official said.
Notably, the ED is investigating the MGNREGA scam, the illegal stone mining case and the cash for PIL case. The accused persons in these cases including IAS Pooja Singhal, Jharkhand CM’s MLA representative Pankaj Mishra, Kolkata-based businessman Amit Agrawal, power broker Prem Prakash and one Bacchu Yadav are lodged in this jail.
