ED arrests Jharkhand minister's personal secretary, house help after recovering Rs 35.23 cr cash

Ranchi (Jharkhand) [India], May 7 (ANI): Jharkhand's rural development minister Alamgir Alam's personal secretary (PS) and the latter's house help were arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Tuesday, a day after Rs 35.23 crore were seized from them. 

Both Sanjiv Lal, PS to Jharkhand minister Alamgir Alam, and his domestic help, Jahangir Alam, were arrested by the ED after the raids and subsequent recovery of Rs 35.23 crore in cash from their premises in Jharkhand's Ranchi. Steel trunks filled with recovered cash were taken away from Alamgir Alam's residence in Ranchi on Monday night. 

Reportedly, the duo was questioned by the ED overnight and later taken into custody on Tuesday. 

Following their arrest under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the duo was produced in a special PMLA court and has been sent to ED remand for six days, officials said. 

The ED carried out fresh searches at five locations in Jharkhand's Ranchi on Tuesday, in continuation of yesterday's raid, and seized around Rs 1.5 crore from a contractor identified as Rajiv Kumar Singh. Reportedly, over Rs 10 crore was routed through him, officials said. 

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Earlier, the ED conducted raids at multiple locations in Ranchi on May 6 in connection with its ongoing probe into a case against Virendra K Ram, a chief engineer at the Jharkhand Rural Development Department. He was arrested by the ED in February 2023 in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the implementation of some schemes. 

The chief engineer was nabbed by the ED after it launched multiple searches on February 21, 2023, in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, and a few other places in Jharkhand, Bihar, and Delhi. 

Earlier on Monday morning, the ED raided the premises of both Sanjiv Lal and his domestic help Alamgir Alam in Ranchi and has so far recovered Rs 35.23 crore cash from them. 

In 2019, a huge amount of cash was recovered from one of his subordinates. Later, the ED took over the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. (ANI)