ED visits J'khand CM Hemant Soren's Delhi house in connection to money laundering case

Hemant Soren/File Pic PTI

An Enforcement Directorate team on Monday visited the residence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in connection with a money laundering investigation, news wire PTI reported quoting official sources.

The sources indicated that the visit could be linked to his fresh deposition in an alleged land fraud case in which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had questioned him at his official residence in Ranchi on January 20.

The agency had issued fresh summons to Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren to join the probe on any date between January 27 and 31 but since there was no official response, it has issued a fresh letter-cum-summons to the 48-year-old politician, who is also the executive president of the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

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The ED recorded Soren's statement for the first time in the case on January 20 after its investigators went to his official residence in Ranchi. The statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the nearly seven hours the investigators spent at his home.

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.

Meanwhile, Soren alleged that a conspiracy was hatched against him after the ED interrogated him in a money laundering case for more than seven hours on January 20. Addressing a large crowd of supporters outside his residence where he was interrogated, Soren said he was not scared and would face the "bullets first".

"A conspiracy was hatched against me, but the final nail in the coffin of the conspirators will be put by us... We will not be scared, your leader will face the bullets first and keep your morale high," Soren told JMM workers who had been outside his house since the morning, and refused to leave even after ED officers left.

Soren, 48, who is also the executive president of the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), earlier has skipped seven summonses of the agency.

(With PTI Inputs)