Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alam, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case, has been remanded to ED custody for six days. The minister was produced before a PMLA court in Ranchi on Thursday amid tight security arrangements.
Alam was arrested after a six-hour interrogation by the ED at their office in the city on Wednesday. He was also questioned on Tuesday for over nine hours and his statement was recorded. This came days after the recovery of a huge amount of cash from the household help of his personal secretary Sanjeev Lal.
On May 7, the ED confiscated approximately Rs 36.75 crore during its searches and subsequently arrested Sanjeev Lal along with his domestic aide Jahangir Alam. The ED disclosed to a special PMLA court in Ranchi that Lal was gathering ‘commission’ on behalf of certain influential individuals and government officials.
Of the seized cash, the ED retrieved Rs 32.20 crore from a flat in Ranchi, where Jahangir Alam was residing, and approximately Rs 3 crore from another site, including Rs 10.05 lakh from Lal’s residence. Additionally, on May 8, it recovered Rs 1.5 crore from a contractor’s premises.
It took the ED over 12 hours to complete the counting process, employing six counting machines for the task. Furthermore, the central agency asserted that officials at all levels, from top to bottom, were allegedly implicated in an illegal cash payment nexus.
However, Alam, who is currently representing the Pakur seat in the assembly, distanced himself from the matter, saying that people had known him for 25-30 years and that his image was ‘not that of a corrupt person’. ‘Elections are going on. The ED is investigating the matter. Being the minister of the department, they can interrogate me. I do not want to say anything about this. People are understanding everything,’ Alam had said.
