VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Sept 22: Vinod Kumar, a stone crusher owner and a prime witness of the illegal stone mining in Sahibganj has told the Enforcement Directorate that Pankaj Mishra had extorted Rs 15 lakh to allow him mining business. “But even after taking money, Pankaj did not allow him to do business and did not return the money,” he is said to have told the agency.
Pankaj Mishra is the MLA representative of Chief Minister Hemant Soren and a senior JMM functionary also.
Vinod had borrowed money from different persons and he delivered the cash payment through a local JMM functionary who is close to the local JMM MP Vijay Hansda. But despite making payments of Rs 15 lakh he could not restart his stone crusher unit. When he demanded the local functionary to ask Pankaj Mishra to return the money, he was further threatened. Pankaj Mishra even captured his leased stone mining area and carried out illegal mining there also. Pankaj Mishra is so powerful that even today he is not able to get a license from the State Pollution Control Board to operate a mining and crusher, he has told the ED.
The witness is said to have told the ED that since he remained defiant hence Pankaj Mishra got his stone crusher unit shut with the help of the district administration and the mining department. The payment was made in 2020. The witness is learnt to have submitted some evidence to the ED and said that there are many
During the investigation of the illegal mining running over Rs 1000 crore, the ED detected properties of Pankaj Mishra worth Rs 42 crore raised out of the proceeds of crime.
The ED has stated that Pankaj Mishra enjoyed political clout, being Chief Minister’s local representative. He controls the illegal mining businesses as well as inland ferry services in Sahibganj and its adjoining areas through his accomplices. He wields enormous control over the mining of stone chips and boulders as well as the installation and operations of several crushers, set up across various mining sites in Sahibganj.
