ED seizes Rs 36 lakh, SUV from Hemant Soren's Delhi residence

The federal agency searched the 5/1 Shanti Niketan residence of the JMM leader in south Delhi on Monday and camped there for almost 13 hours in order to question him in a money laundering case.

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has seized Rs 36 lakh, a BMW SUV and some "incriminating" documents after it searched the Delhi house of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, official sources said Tuesday.

The federal agency searched the 5/1 Shanti Niketan building of the JMM leader in south Delhi on Monday and camped there for almost 13 hours in order to question him in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land deal case of Jharkhand.

The sources said the ED teams seized about Rs 36 lakh in cash, a Haryana registered BMW SUV under a name that the ED considers "benami" and some "incriminating" documents during the day-long operation.

Soren, 48, who reached Ranchi on Tuesday, has informed the ED that he is ready to depose before them on Wednesday at his residence in the state capital around 1 pm.

A party official said in Ranchi that all the legislators of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led ruling alliance in Jharkhand have been asked not to leave the state capital and to attend a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the current political situation in the state.

The investigation pertains to a "huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia" in Jharkhand, according to the central probe 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.

An employee of the Jharkhand land revenue department, Bhanu Prasad Prasad, was also arrested by the agency in the case.

The ED investigation pertains to "huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/ bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores''.