Dogs unleashed on ED sleuths:

Crime

Dogs unleashed on ED sleuths: 42 locations raided in coal scam case

After raids at two sand stock points in Galsi near here yesterday, the Enforcement Directorate officials carried out extensive coordinated raids altogether in at least 42 locations of Bengal and Jharkhand in connection with a Rs 3,500 Crore coal scam case since early morning today.

Today's raids witnessed some dramatic Bollywood movie like scenes when the accused even unleashed dog attacks on the sleuths in Dhanbad. The raids, however, secured seizures of hefty gold diamond jewelries, besides millions of rupees hard unaccounted cash from the possession of the accused persons.

More than 40 premises were covered in the raids that were launched around 6 am, with almost 100 officials and staff of the federal probe agency participating.

Cash and gold worth Rs 8 crore have been seized from West Bengal, while cash of about Rs 2.2 crore was recovered during the searches in Jharkhand. About 120 land deeds have also been seized from the premises covered in Jharkhand, officials said.

Teams of central security forces provided security to the ED teams, which searched residences and offices apart from toll collection booths and check posts.

The raids were still continuing till late evening hours in several locations.

The raids were conducted in connection with the much talked about coal scam investigations kicked off in 2019 by the Central Bureau of Investigation, in which some organised mafia networks were involved. The ED later joined the probe to ascertain the magnitude of loss of government revenue, and fresh investigations began following the provisions of Section 6 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In Bengal, the ED sleuths cracked down on as many as 24 locations including Salt Lake, Kolkata, Durgapur, Asansol, Purulia, Howrah and Pandaveswar mine areas near Raniganj coal-town where some houses and offices of the mafia groups were raided. In Jharkhand, as was gathered, raids were conducted in 18 locations in connection with the coal smuggling, where local entities like LB Singh, Anil Goyal, Sanjay Udhyom and Amar Mondal of Dhanbad were quizzed for several hours since 6:00 am today.

Singh - owner of a company involved in coal extraction in mines outsourced by Bharat Cocking Coal - a PSU miner, allegedly had assigned his pet dogs to avoid confronting the ED sleuths. The raid, as a result, halted briefly due to the unexpected inconvenience caused by the pets and their owner. Later, the local police assisted the sleuths to overpower the carnivore pets, sources said.

The officials raided the office and residencial premises of Narayan Kharka, Krishna Murari Kayal, Lokesh Singh, Yudhisthir Ghosh, Chinmoy Mondal and Rajkishore Yadav, Susanta Goswami in City Centre and Bidhannagar areas of the town. Rajkishore and Susanta were the accountants of Kharka. The ED officials broke open the locked flat of Kharka and his accountant Goswami at a posh apartment in Bidhannagar.

Lokesh, Yudhisthir, were Kharka's close aides for storage and transportation of the smuggled coal, the officials received a tip off. The accused also were involved in sand trafficking from multiple rivers including the Damodar and the Ajoy, allegedly. Also, the house of a trader Ramdhani Jaiswal at the Doctor's Colony in City Centre here was raided.

The officials, as was learnt, seized several papers and electronic documents linked to the organised pilferage of coal and political patronage that had been causing extensive revenue loss of the PSU subsidiaries like BCCL and Eastern Coalfields (ECL).

Previously, the CBI had booked some top ECL officials, alongside some noted coal mafias, including Kharka, Joydev Mondal of Asansol in connection with the coal smuggling case. The CBI, incidentally, has filed several charge sheets at the Special Court in Asansol in coal scam case and the Special Court last week has directed the Central Investigation agency to submit a final charge-sheet in the case within three weeks.