Ranchi: JMM President Hemant Soren was arrested by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday in the land scam case. The arrest came after 7 hours of questioning at his residence in Ranchi, after which Hemant Soren decided to go to Raj Bhawan and resigned from his position as chief minister of Jharkhand.
Hemant Soren resigned as the chief minister of Jharkhand on Wednesday before ED took him in custody in the land scam case. According to media reports, the ED is expected to present Soren before a special PMLA court here tomorrow and the agency will seek his remand for custodial interrogation. Hemant Soren has filed a writ petition in the Jharkhand High Court against the ED summons. The hearing of this case will be held on Thursday at 10:30 am.
This case is related to the purchase and sale of 8.50 acres of land in Baritayatu area of Bargaini area of Ranchi. So far, 13 people including IAS have been arrested in this case.
Speculations that Hemant Soren’s wife Kalpana Soren might become the next chief minister of Jharkhand were rife amid huge drama over Hemant Soren’s apparent ‘disappearance’ for around 40 hours when ED searched his Delhi house on Monday. Meanwhile, the MLAs of the ruling JMM-Congress coalition also reached the Governor’s house and declared senior JMM leader Champai Soren as the choice for the next chief minister of Jharkhand.
Champai Soren is the new elected leader of the legislative party after the resignation of CM Hemant Soren. He has also staked claim to form a new government before Governor CP Radhakrishnan. After meeting the Governor at Raj Bhavan, Champai Soren said that we have asked for the time of oath taking from Raj Bhavan. Till now we have not been given time. Hopefully we will be called to take oath soon.
Jharkhand’s new Chief Minister Champai Soren said that we have staked claim to form the government before the Governor. We went with the support of 43 MLAs. JMM MLA Alamgir said that we have 47 MLAs, we have submitted the letters of support of 43 MLAs to the Governor. He has asked us to give him time soon.
When ED started investigating this case and searched the documents, the documents related to this land were found on the mobile phone of Revenue Sub-Inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad. Bhanu Pratap has been arrested for selling land by falsifying documents. After this, on the basis of the documents found in the mobile phone, ED started investigating the land.
As of now, 13 people including former Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi i.e. DC Chhavi Ranjan and big businessman Vishnu Aggarwal have been arrested in the case of illegal purchase and sale of land in Ranchi. Apart from Vishnu Aggarwal, the then DC of Ranchi Chhavi Ranjan, Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate director Dilip Ghosh, Rajesh Auto director Amit Aggarwal, revenue employee Bhanu Pratap Prasad, grandson of the fake owner of the land Rajesh Rai, power of attorney holder Bharat Prasad, Army. Pradeep Bagchi, the fake owner of the land occupied by him, Afsar Ali, the leader of the gang selling the land through fraud, Imtiaz Ahmed, Saddam Hussain, Talha Khan and Faiyaz Khan, members of the fraud gang, have been arrested.
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