The Congress leader on Tuesday grilled by ED officials for over nine hours in connection with a money laundering case. Alam, the state’s Rural Development minister, arrived at the ED office around 11 am and came out of the office around 8.30 pm.
The probe agency had last week arrested Alam’s personal secretary and state administrative service officer Sanjeev Kumar Lal (52) and the latter’s domestic help Jahangir Alam (42), following the seizure of more than Rs 32 crore cash from a flat linked to them.
Alam, aged 70, was asked to depose at the zonal office of the ED in Ranchi on Tuesday for recording his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
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About the case:
The total seizure of cash by the ED in this case has been recorded at around Rs 36.75 crore as the agency seized about Rs 3 crore from other locations including Rs 10.05 lakh from Lal’s place apart from Rs 1.5 crore cash from a contractor’s place last Tuesday.
Alamgir Alam had distanced himself from the activities of Lal while speaking to reporters after the ED raids, pointing out that he had earlier served with other ministers of the state government too.
The agency said that the names of “senior bureaucrats and politicians” have emerged in the case and this was being investigated. It had conducted searches at the rural development ministry in Ranchi too with Lal accompanying ED officials.
The money laundering case of September 2020 is based on an anti-corruption branch (Jamshedpur) case of Jharkhand Police and a March 2023 FIR filed by the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police against former chief engineer of the state rural works department Veerendra Kumar Ram and some others.
Ram was arrested by the ED last year. Ram, the ED claimed, used to “collect commissions” in terms of allocation of tender and execution of work and this commission of 1.5 per cent was “distributed” among his seniors and politicians.
It was alleged by the ED before the court that one such commission was handed over by Ram to Lal in September 2022.
The money laundering investigation pertains to alleged irregularities in the state’s rural development department.
(with agency inputs)
