Ranchi. ED’s action has intensified in the land scam case in Jharkhand. ED has arrested 4 accused in the land scam case. According to the information, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha i.e. JMM leader Antu Tirkey was arrested by ED. Apart from the JMM leader, real estate workers Vipin Singh, Priyaranjan Sahay and Irshad have been arrested by the ED. ED had raided the premises of all these on Tuesday. After the raid, he was brought to the ED office in Ranchi at night. After which the accused were arrested.
ED had already arrested JMM leader and former CM Hemant Soren in the land scam case in Jharkhand. Jharkhand land scam started being exposed in June 2022. An FIR was lodged by Ranchi Municipal Corporation Tax Collector Dilip Sharma at Baraitu police station in Ranchi. Pradeep Bagchi was made an accused in this FIR. Pradeep Bagchi was accused of embezzling army property through fake documents. When ED investigated, 4.5 acres of land was found to belong to BM Laxman Rao. Laxman Rao had given the land to the army after independence. On receiving evidence, ED arrested 7 accused including Pradeep Bagchi in April 2023.
Among the seven people caught by ED, Officer Ali and Bhanu Pratap were government employees. All the rest were land mafia and used to sell land with the help of fake documents. ED had also arrested IAS Chhavi Ranjan on 4 May 2023 in this land scam case. Chhavi Ranjan was Deputy Collector in Ranchi for 2 years. Chhavi Ranjan is accused of helping in illegal purchase and sale of land. ED claims that during the investigation, it found that the land mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats together carried out a scam to show Pradeep Bagchi as the real owner of the army land. For this a document of 1932 was also shown. This document was completely fake.