Enforcement Directorate team visits Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s Delhi house

New Delhi, January 29

An Enforcement Directorate team on Monday visited the house of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in Delhi in connection with a money-laundering investigation, official sources said.

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, sources said.

Soren had sent a communication to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) but had not confirmed the date and time for questioning, according to 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 so far has arrested 14 people in the case.