Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: An Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on Monday visited the residence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in Delhi in connection with a money laundering investigation, official sources said.
The sources indicated that the visit could be linked to his fresh deposition in an alleged land fraud case in which the ED had questioned him at his official residence in Ranchi on January 20 and had issued a fresh summons to him for this week.
Officials of the federal probe agency accompanied by Delhi Police personnel reached the 5/1 Shanti Niketan building in South Delhi around 9 am, while a number of press photographers, reporters and camera teams stood outside.
The agency had issued the fresh summons to Soren last week asking him to confirm his availability for questioning on either January 29 or January 31, the sources said.
Soren had sent a communication to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), but had not confirmed the date and time for questioning, according to the sources. He left Ranchi for Delhi on January 27.
The agency had recorded the statement of the 48-year-old chief minister for the first time in the case on January 20 after investigators went to his official residence in Ranchi.
They recorded his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the about seven hours they spent at his home.
It is understood that as the questioning did not finish on that day, the fresh summons was issued.
The investigation pertains to a "huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia" in Jharkhand, according to the agency.
The ED has, so far, arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011-batch IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan who served as the director of the state's Social Welfare Department and deputy commissioner of Ranchi.