More than Rs 7 lakh in cash and 21 cartridges of different calibres were seized from the premises of Sahibganj deputy commissioner (DC) Ram Niwas Yadav, the Enforcement Directorate said on Thursday, a day after conducting searches against him and Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren’s press advisor in an illegal mining case.
The federal agency said in a statement that apart from seizing “incriminating” digital devices, it recovered a total cash amount of Rs 36.99 lakh, including Rs 7.25 lakh from the camp office of Ram Niwas Yadav, DC of Sahibganj.
Apart from this, 19 cartridges of 9mm bore, two of .380 mm and five empty cases of .45 pistols were also recovered from the residential premises of Yadav, it said.
Thirty “benami” bank accounts, whose documents were found during the daylong searches, have been frozen, it said.
A dozen locations in Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Rajasthan were covered during these fresh raids conducted in this case on Wednesday.
The residences of Abhishek Prasad alias Pintu, press advisor to CM Hemant Soren, Yadav and Rajendra Dubey, a DSP of Sahibganj, were covered.
The ED said the action was related to a case of “illegal stone mining prevalent in Sahibganj, having proceeds of crime of more than Rs 1,000 crore.”
“Rampant illegal mining activities were being done in Sahibganj area and in order to ascertain the extent of this act, twenty joint inspections of illegal mining activities were carried out by the officers of the ED along with administrative, forest, mining, pollution control departments of Jharkhand government,” it stated.
“The joint inspection has confirmed the instance of huge illegal mining as well as denudation of land and forest area leading to environmental hazards,” the ED alleged.
During the joint inspection, the quantum of illegal mining of more than 23.26 crore cubic feet having approximate market value of Rs 1,250 crore has been detected and determined, it said.
The money laundering case stems from state police FIRs filed against Bishnu Yadav, Pavitra Yadav, Pankaj Mishra, one of the political advisors of Soren, and others. The case was later taken over by the CBI as per the direction of the Jharkhand High Court, the ED said.
Probe found that the “kingpin” of this illegal mining was Pankaj Mishra.
The ED arrested him in July, 2022 and he is currently lodged in a jail in judicial custody.
The agency had first conducted raids in this case in 2022 and by now it has undertaken 51 such operations and arrested eight people.