SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Nov. 10: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today summoned Sahibganj SP Naushad Alam to appear on November 22.
According to ED sources, he is involved in making Bijay Hansda, a key witness of the agency in the illegal mining scam in Sahibganj, turn hostile.
Alam, who was earlier posted as Rural SP in Ranchi, had been transferred to Sahibganj on July 26.
Hansda filed a complaint before the district court about illegal mining at Nimbu Pahad in Sahibganj district, alleging that a section of people close to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, was involved in it, and later filed a petition seeking a probe by an independent agency in the matter before the Jharkhand High Court, took a U-turn, saying he did not have any information of illegal mining at the said location.
He also told the court that Mishra never misbehaved with him or threatened him.
Hansda even filed a petition in the Jharkhand High Court to withdraw his petition, filed for a probe into illegal mining. The high court, however, turned down his plea on August 18, and asked the CBI to hold a preliminary enquiry (PE) into the “conduct of accused persons (Pankaj Mishra among others) named in the SC/ST Sahibganj P.S. Case No.06/2022 dated 01.12.2022 as well as the complainant Bijay Hansda and also directed the Director, CBI to take further action by the law.
The CBI, after holding its preliminary inquiry, found the case filed by Mukesh Yadav and Ashok Yadav, both ED witnesses, as true saying that Bijay Hansda at times acted under the influence of accused persons in SC/ST Sahibganj P.S. Case No.06 of 2022. The charges of manhandling the ED officers in the high court premises were also true.
Ironically, the CBI, instead of acting on the findings of the PE, sought a specific order from the court to lodge an FIR. The Court, however, turned it down, saying the modification petition was ‘misconceived.’ It implied that the CBI director was free to lodge an FIR.
The CBI’s interpretation of the August 18 order even angered the court as the agency had earlier lodged an FIR against Kolkata-based businessman Amit Agarwal and unknown officials of the Kolkata police on January 19 on a similarly worded order passed by the same bench on November 30 last year.
Agarwal was booked for hatching a conspiracy and scandalising the judiciary, ED officials, and other government officials through an allegedly frivolous FIR. The ED has already arrested Agarwal in the Ranchi land scam.
