ED raids Bengal, Jharkhand sites in illegal coal mining case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted search operations at 40 locations in West Bengal and Jharkhand in connection with the illegal coal mining, transportation and storage case.

Searches were carried out in around 24 locations in West Bengal and 18 locations in Jharkhand.

In West Bengal, the anti-money laundering agency conducted searches at 24 premises in Durgapur, Purulia, Howrah and Kolkata districts in the illegal coal mining, illegal transportation and storage of coal case.

These operations pertain to several major cases of coal theft and smuggling, ED officials said.

Total seizure of cash and gold and jewellery at the time of reporting was worth more than Rs 8 crores from West Bengal, while cash worth more than Rs 2.2 crore along with 120 land deeds were recovered and seized from searched premises in Jharkhand till the time of reporting.

The collective scale of the cases involves significant coal pilferage and theft, resulting in a massive financial loss to the government estimated to be around hundreds of crores, ED sources informed further.

The persons whose premises are being covered include Narendra Kharka, Yudhistar Ghosh, Krishna Murari Kayal, Chinmayi Mondal, Rajkoshore Yadav and others.

More than 100 ED officials and staff are carrying out the searches against coal mafia. The search operations began at around 6 am on Friday morning.

The premises covered include residential properties, offices, coke plants and illegal toll collection booth, check post and nakas.