In a first, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested Hemant Soren, moments after he demitted the office of Jharkhand chief minister, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with its probe into an alleged land scam in the state, people familiar with the development said.

The development comes two days after an elaborate set-up by the federal agency in its attempt to nab the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader in Delhi by placing teams at his residence and airport here, but he managed to slip from the national capital to reach Ranchi by road on Tuesday.

Ex-Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren arrested. LIVE Updates

Confirming the development, an official said they have evidence that he is the key beneficiary in the alleged land related irregularities in Ranchi, where a network of brokers and businessmen were working over the years to create fake deeds of landed parcels by forging records in the registrar offices and further selling them off.

“We have evidence that Hemant Soren had grabbed some parcel of land under probe in Jharkhand, which was illegally obtained by others through falsified documents,” said an officer, who didn’t want to be named.

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A Kolkata based businessman, Amit Kumar Agarwal, arrested by ED on June 7 last year, is also key to Soren’s arrest as he is suspected to be the handler of tainted funds of several politicians including then Jharkhand CM, as alleged in a PIL filed in the Jharkhand high court in 2021 through a lawyer, Rajeev Kumar.

He had avoided questioning by the ED on at least seven occasions since August last year but finally agreed to be quizzed on January 20 at his residence in Ranchi. However, the agency again asked him to appear before it on January 29 or 31.

The ED team reached his official residence in the state’s capital on Wednesday and questioned him for almost seven hours before he was placed under arrest around 10 pm at the agency’s Ranchi office after the JMM leader submitted his resignation to the governor.

Officials said he will be produced before a court on Thursday, where the agency will explain the exact charges against him.

Allegations against ex-CM Soren

ED has already filed a charge sheet in the alleged land scam on June 12, 2023, naming Amit Agarwal, arrested Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) Chhavi Ranjan and eight other individuals – Dilip Kumar Ghosh (a close aide of Agarwal), Pradip Bagchi, Afshar Ali (alleged kingpin who created fake deeds on landed properties), Mohammad Saddam Hussain, Imtiaz Ahmad, Talha Khan, Faiyaz Ahmed, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, and three companies linked to Agarwal – Jagatbandhu Tea Estates Pvt Ltd, Rajesh Auto Merchandise Pvt Ltd and Aurora Studio Pvt Ltd.

The alleged scam pertains to usurping prime landed parcels including a 4.55 acre defence land at Morabadi Mouza at Ranchi, and a land parcel of 7.6 acres at Hehal, Ranchi – both valued at over ₹74 crore at the current market price, besides several other land parcels – by the accused persons by making fake deeds using manufactured identities and falsifying original land records at Circle Offices and Registrar of Assurances (RoA), Kolkata and Circle Offices in Jharkhand, according to the ED charge sheet, seen by HT.

Overall, ED has recovered documents related to at least 27 properties of which fake deeds were created by the accused persons.

Earlier, registration of the landed properties of Bihar (when Jharkhand was part of it) was done at Kolkata at the office of Registrar

of Assurances (RoA). This continued till 1991 after which Bihar properties’ registration, including present-day Jharkhand, became mandatory at the concerned jurisdictional land registration offices.

Detailing the modus operandi, an ED official, who didn’t want to be named, said – “The accused persons manufactured back-dated deeds of the targeted landed properties from Kolkata and planted it in original registers at RoA, Kolkata. Then, they used to obtain certified copies of those deeds and then disposed of the properties in connivance with each other. They had fake stamps/seals through which they created these fake deeds”.

The 4.55 acres (or decimals) land in Ranchi which was sold off by creating falsified documents belonged to defence, according to ED.The ED charge sheet states that Afshar Ali, a resident of Bariatu, Ranchi, and his accomplices prepared a fake deed from the office

of RoA, Kolkata in the name of one Prafulla Bagchi, projecting that this 4.55-acre land belonged to the latter.

Prem Prakash, an accused in ED’s separate probe in Jharkhand related to illegal mining who is said to be connected politically there, allegedly assisted them in the illegal act while Chhavi Ranjan (former deputy commissioner of Ranchi) influenced the officials of Circle Office and district sub registrar, Ranchi and managed to procure a favourable report for Pradeep Bagchi. The land was subsequently acquired by Amit Agarwal’s company – Jagatbandhu Tea Estates Pvt Ltd by paying only ₹25 lakh in 2022. The actual commercial value of this property is around ₹41 crore, according to ED.

Afshar Ali admitted before ED that he had prepared the fake deed of the property which was in possession of the Army. He further stated this land was sold to Jagatbandhu Tea Estates with the help of Prem Prakash at an amount of ₹7 crore but only ₹25 lakh was paid. He also disclosed that no government official demanded money for registration of the property as they knew that Amit Agarwal, Prem Prakash and Chhavi Ranjan were involved in this registration, the charge sheet claims.

Interestingly, the same property was claimed by another person – Jayant Karnad – as well, who created false documents on it claiming rights and then sold it off to 14 individuals through 16 sale deeds at a price of ₹2.55 crore.

In the case of Hehal property too, a fake deed was prepared by brokers and original deeds were torn and removed from the original registers of the district sub registrar, Ranchi office. Chhavi Ranjan cancelled the Jamabandi (record of rights) of this land and allowed the mutation of this property in the name of one person, Binod Singh. Immediately, it was sold to two persons – Shyam Singh and Ravi Singh Bhatia – at a consideration price of ₹15 crore, ED charge sheet reveals.

The agency didn’t disclose if Soren grabbed the 4.55 acre land linked to Amit Agarwal or the 7.6 acre land sold to Shyam Singh and Ravi Bhatia.