Within a couple of hours, after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the New Delhi residence of former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren on January 29th and seized a blue BMW car from his premises, a WhatsApp group was formed to destroy evidence related to this car.
The group named ‘ED-HSoren Car’ had around a dozen participants, including the son of a top politician of Jharkhand, advocates, and some others. Well-placed sources said that participants discussed how to hush up and destroy whatever evidence may potentially connect the link of this car with Soren and Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand Dhiraj Prasad Sahu.
The ED ultimately arrested Soren on January 31st in the land scam case. Soren is facing the charge of usurping 8.5 acres of tribal land in Ranchi by misusing his power as Chief Minister of Jharkhand.
But the recovery of the car (HR26EM2836) opened a Pandora's box for Soren as well as a Congress MP who is a top businessman and liquor baron as well. This car is registered in the name of Kolkata-based Bhagwan Das Holding Pvt Limited whose owner is Premnath Agrawal.
The car was purchased on January 15th, 2021. The address used for the purchase is Anant Raj Estate Management Service Pvt Ltdat at Gurgaon in Haryana. This is also one of the addresses of MP Sahu.
Hence, based on the above, the ED conducted a raid on the Gurgaon premises of Sahu on February 7 and further summoned him for questioning on February 10. Besides, the ED also raided premises related to Premnath Agrawal. The ED seized mobile phones which blew the lid upon the secret WhatsApp group.
The ED suspects the car is one of the benami properties under the possession of Soren and strongly doubts the involvement of Sahu in this. Yogesh Agrawal (son of Premnath) and Harshit (son of Sahu) have been a good friend. Premnath could not explain why was his car parked on the Delhi premises of Soren and in what capacity Soren was using that car. Besides, his Delhi address was found to be the residence of Sahu.
Sahu also remained evasive about his connection with the car. But the ED is learned to have some strong evidence suggesting the car may be another case of corruption.
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