ed-arrests-4-including-jmm-congress-leaders-in-ranchi-land-scam-case

The Enforcement Directorate has arrested another four persons including Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Antu Tirkey, Congress leader and land broker Priyaranjan Sahay in the land scam case related to former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

 

The ED on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of JMM leader Antu Tirkey, real estate businessman Bipin Singh, Priya Ranjan Sahay and Irshad Akhtar after conducting raids on their locations on Tuesday. 

 

After the raids, the ED sleuths took the accused persons to the ED’s Zonal office for questioning on Tuesday night.

 

During the raids, ED is said to have seized more than a dozen digital devices, huge amounts of land documents and bank accounts. During the investigation, ED came to know that Officer Ali was also associated with Md Saddam's syndicate, whereas Bipin Singh used to go to the Badgai area and commit land fraud.

 

Singh was helped by former revenue sub-inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad, who is already in jail in the case. ED has received information that fake documents for two plots of 8.86 acres of land belonging to former Chief Minister Hemant Soren were also prepared by a Kolkata gang.

 

Around 6.30 am on Tuesday, the ED team reached the residence of JMM leader Antu Tirkey in Bariatu. After this, the documents were being scrutinized at Antu Tirkey's house. Different teams of ED were conducting raids in the Tupudana, Bariatu, Morhabadi and Pandara areas of Ranchi.

 

During the raid, ED found many land documents. Even before this, the ED team had raided the residences of Bipin Singh, Shekhar Kushwaha and Priyaranjan Sahay in the Army land scam.

 

Based on the interrogation of Saddam Hussain, who was arrested in the 8.86-acre land scam located in Bariatu, raids were conducted at the places of all these people and they were arrested.

 

ED has sought a remand of seven days to interrogate the four arrested accused persons. In the remand application, the ED has said that during the scrutiny of diaries seized from the possession of Md. Saddam Hussain, reveals that Antu Tirkey is involved in fraudulent sale/purchase of land. The scrutiny of a diary found by ED revealed huge cash dealings between Md. Saddam Hussain and Antu Tirkey had taken place.

 

ED has also said that Bipin Singh and Priya Ranjan Sahay are also involved in the forgeries of government records in association with Afshar Ali, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, Shekhar Kushwaha Mahto and others in tempering the original Panji II registers.

 

ED has also issued a summons to a land broker Shekhar Kushwaha in the land scam case. It is said that Irshad used to bring land records from Kolkata which were forged to create fresh fake documents. Antu Tirkey was dealing with the same khata number of land which Hemant Soren had allegedly grabbed.