New Delhi:

The evidence used by the Enforcement Directorate to support the illegal acquisition of 8.86 acres of land worth over Rs 31 crore by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren includes invoices for refrigerators and smart TVs.

The federal probe obtained the receipts from two dealers in Ranchi and attached them to the charge sheet filed last month against the 48-year-old Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and four others .

A special PMLA court before Ranchi judge Rajiv Ranjan heard the prosecution’s complaint on April 4.

Mr Soren was arrested by the ED on January 31 in connection with a money laundering case related to an alleged land grab, soon after he resigned as chief minister. He is currently in judicial custody at Birsa Munda Jail in Hotwar, Ranchi.

According to the ED, the two baubles were purchased in the name of a family member of Santosh Munda, who told the agency that he “lived in the said land as Hemant Soren” (8.86 acres) property” has been resident for 14 years. to 15 years”.

The agency used Mr Munda’s statement to refute Mr Soren’s assertion that he had no connection to the said land. The ED also dismissed the claim of a man named Rajkumar Pahan to the land, claiming that he was a “front” for Soren to control the property.

The ED claimed that soon after Mr Soren issued the first summons in the case in August last year, Mr Pahan wrote to the Ranchi Deputy Commissioner stating that he and some others owned the land and that the earlier mutation belonged to other owners With their names cancelled, they may be protected from eviction from their property.

The education ministry said the state government “returned” the land to Mr Pahan on January 29, two days before Soren’s arrest, so the JMM leader’s control and possession remained “unhindered”.

According to the federal investigation agency, the land originally belonged to the “Bhuinhari” property and generally cannot be transferred or sold to anyone and the “Mundas” and “Pahans” are the owners of such land assets.

The ED claimed that the immovable property was later sold to some persons by the original allottees but Soren “evicted” them and obtained control of the land in 2010-11.

Santosh Munda also told the ED that the land was visited “two to three times” by Hemant Soren and his wife Kalpana, who worked as a laborer during the construction of a wall on the plot.

The ED claimed that at the request of Mr Soren, Mr Munda was entrusted with the care of the property, where Hilariyas Kachhap, another defendant in the case, was also installed. Meter.

The agency said that in February 2017, Mr. Munda purchased a refrigerator in the name of his son and a smart TV in the name of his daughter in November 2022 at the address where the Ranchi land is located.

Therefore, the ED said it was “established” that Santosh Munda and his family were residing in the property and that the property did not belong to the accused Rajkumar Pahan.

“Rajkumar Pahan acted as the frontman of Hemant Soren so that it could somehow be proven that the property was owned by Pahan and his family and the evidence against Mr Soren could be foiled and the proceeds of crime hidden ,” the agency claimed.

The ED has entered the two bills into evidence and attached them with the charge sheet under the “relying on documents” category as it seeks to prosecute Soren and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Mr Soren, Rajkumar Pahan, Hilariyas Kachhap, Bhanu Pratap Prasad and Binod Singh are named as accused in the 191-page chargesheet. The land – 12 adjoining plots guarded by cement walls – was also attached by the Education Department on March 30 and is worth over Rs 31.07 crore.

The agency stumbled upon the alleged land grab while investigating another money laundering case in 2022, in which a 4.55-acre land belonging to the Ministry of Defense in Morabadi, Ranchi, was “fraudulently obtained”.

According to the ED, the investigation found that “a group of private individuals, including former DC Ranchi, Chhavi Ranjan and Bhanu Pratap Prasad (sub-inspector, revenue department, Government of Jharkhand), in connivance with government officials, were part of a piece of land. – Looting syndicate “They were involved in corrupt practices, including obtaining properties based on false pretenses, falsifying government records, tampering with original income documents, etc. to facilitate the fraudulent acquisition of landed properties by private individuals,” the report said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)