ED quizzes J'khand CM Hemant Soren for 5 hrs

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren for nearly five hours on Saturday in connection with an alleged land scam, in what the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader said was an attempt to destabilise his government.

- Vishal Kant

The central probe agency is expected to quiz the leader for another day which will be decided later, people familiar with the matter said, as ED officials left the CM’s Kanke Road residence in the state capital Ranchi amid heavy security deployment.

“They [the Centre] are hatching conspiracies... We are doing the state’s development by shredding their conspiracies to pieces. It is time to put a final nail in their coffin. Hemant Soren will always stand with the workers,” the 48-year-old executive president of the JMM told supporters after Saturday’s questioning.

Soren gave his consent for questioning when the probe agency summoned him for the eighth time, after he skipped the first seven.

“I thank you for your day-long support. I want to assure you that we are neither afraid nor have ever bowed down. Irrespective of any obstacle we are not going to bow down to lies,” he said in a brief address outside his house where hundreds of JMM supporters had gathered earlier in the day to protest the ED action.

“We have been marching ahead untying the web of opposition’s conspiracy. You need not be afraid. Keep your morale high. I assure you it is your leader who would take the first bullet fired at us,” Soren said.

The central agency’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) probe against Soren pertains to an alleged land scam linked to the ownership of a parcel of land measuring 7.16 acres in Bajra area of Ranchi. It has been alleged that the land parcel was acquired through proceeds of crime involving illegal sale of army land. The Soren government, however, has said that the case is not clear and the details of his assets are already public.