New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Wednesday conducted searches at 12 locations across four states including the premises of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s press adviser Abhishek Prasad ‘Pintu’, the deputy commissioner (DC) and the deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of Sahibganj district, in connection with a Rs 1,250 crore illegal stone mining case.
IAS officer Ram Niwas Yadav is the Sahibganj DC while Rajendra Dubey is the DSP of Sahibganj. The two have been questioned by the agency in connection with this case earlier as well.
CM Soren too was questioned in this case in November 2022, when he rebuffed the agency’s claims saying that even 6,500 rakes of illegally mined stone could not fetch a royalty of Rs 1,000 crore.
“It appears that you have not identified the loading of even a single rake without requisite challan as you have not taken action against any railway officer. You claim that approximately 6,500 rakes loaded stone in Sahibganj district during the past two years. Even if all these 6,500 rakes loaded only illegally mined stone, which cannot be the case, they would not be sufficient to transport the total quantity of 8 crore MT of illegally mined stone which would fetch a royalty of Rs 1,000 crore,” Soren had said in his letter to the agency at the time.
In the latest round of searches, the ED claimed it recovered a total sum of Rs 36.99 lakh from Sahibganj DC Yadav, including Rs 7.25 lakh from his camp office as well as 30 “benami” accounts which have been frozen as part of the investigation.
What is the case
The ED’s probe began primarily on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Sahibganj police in 2022 against Hemant Soren’s MLA representative Pankaj Mishra, who has been referred to as the “kingpin” of illegal mining by the anti-money laundering agency.
Bishnu Yadav and Pavitra Yadav, who operated Maa Amba Stone Works, the firm allegedly involved in illegal stone mining in Sahibganj, were also named in the FIR, lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act and the Jharkhand Minor Mineral Concession Rules (JMMC) Rules, 2004.
In August last year, the Jharkhand High Court had asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a preliminary enquiry, which is generally a precursor to an FIR by the agency.
Then in November, the agency registered an FIR and booked Pankaj Mishra, Pavitra Kumar Yadav, Rajesh Yadav, Sanjay Kumar Yadav, Bacchu Yadav, Sanjay Yadav, and Suvesh Mandal for their alleged role in “pilferage and illegal extraction” of stone at Sahibganj’s Nimbu Pathar.
ED probe so far
The agency said that it conducted 20 inspections in the district along with administrative, forest, mining and pollution control officers of the state government to gauge the “rampant illegal mining”.
According to the ED, joint inspections have assessed that 23.26 crore cubic feet of stones have been extracted from the district which can be valued at around Rs 1,250 crore. The agency said that the level of illegal stone mining has also led to the denudation of land and forest areas which will lead to environmental hazards.
A total of eight people have been arrested by the agency in this case so far, including “kingpin” Mishra, who is in judicial custody.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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