ED raids kin, aide of drinking water minister, IAS officer in Jharkhand; silent on recoveries  

THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK

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Ranchi, Oct. 14: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today conducted raids at more than 20 locations in Ranchi and Chaibasa linked to Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Mithilesh Thakur and IAS officer Manish Ranjan.

The premises where the ED sleuths searched for sources and papers of illicit money are the house of Vinay Thakur, brother of Mithlesh Thakur, his PS Harendra Singh, Manish Ranjan and several department engineers.

Mithilesh Thakur, a contractor-turned-politician, holds strong clout in the present dispensation.

Other persons whose premises were raided

Others whose premises were raided included Niranjan Kumar, regional chief engineer (Old Hazaribag Road and Ratu Road), Prabhat Kumar Singh, chief engineer, (Harmu Housing colony, Sahajanand Chowk), Chandrashekhar, executive engineer (Hesag), Radhe Shyam Ravi, executive engineer, Raghunanad Prasad Sharma, ex-chief engineer, Vijay Agrawal, Ranchi, Santosh Kumar, cashier, Manoj Kumar (Bariatu), Sanjay Kumar Singh (Doranda), Sunil Kumar Sinha (Ranchi), Manas Kumar (Ranchi), Bibhor Singhania (Ranchi) and Vedant Khirwal (Chaibasa).

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Manish Ranjan, who had been earlier under the ED scanner in the rural development scam, had been secretary in the drinking water and sanitation department for a considerable time.

Also Read: BJP victory in Jharkhand: Will Shivraj-Himanta duo work its magic? Here’s what are the challenges?

According to ED sources, the agency conducted these raids in connection with the case of irregularities in the Jal Jeevan Mission of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

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So far, the ED officials are tight-lipped over recoveries they have made during raids.

Notably, the scam in the drinking water and sanitation department is said to be of a huge proportion. Sometime back, a PIL in this regard alleging a scam of over Rs 4,000 crore was also filed in the Jharkhand High Court. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders, during their campaign in the Lok Sabha elections, had referred to the ongoing scam in a central scheme meant for supplying piped drinking water to every household.

It’s a political raid: Mithilesh Thakur

When asked, Minister Mithilesh Thakur said, “You know who the target is. “We have become accustomed to all this now. This is not an ED raid but a political raid… If ED works with transparency, we will cooperate fully. ED should not be made a puppet. Even before the Lok Sabha (elections), there was pressure on me to join the BJP, I had said that I would hang on to the gallows till my death, but I would not do that, they would lose (in Jharkhand). We will not bow down. ED should disclose what it found in the raid so that the information can be made public.”