RANCHI: The Jharkhand police on Wednesday registered a case against four Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials including its additional director Kapil Raj on a complaint by chief minister Hemant Soren who accused them of multiple violations of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Hemant Soren filed his complaint with the ST/SC police station in Ranchi on Wednesday, accusing Kapil Raj, Deovrat Jha, Anupam Kumar and Aman Patel, apart from other unnamed ED officials of violating the atrocity law.

The chief minister’s complaint comes against the backdrop of speculation that ED might arrest him in connection with the central agency’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act probe against Soren relating 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 the illegal sale of army land. Soren has dismissed the case as politically motivated and said the details of his assets were in the public domain.

The agency has arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011 batch Indian Administrative Service officer Chhavi Ranjan, who served as director of the state’s social welfare department, deputy commissioner of Ranchi, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, and businessmen Amit Agrawal and Bishnu Agrawal, who own shopping malls in the state capital.

Wednesday’s FIR by Soren has been registered under Section 3 (1) (p),(r), (s) and (u) of the SC/ST atrocity law which are punishable on conviction with a minimum jail term of six months and a maximum of five years. HT has reviewed a copy of the FIR.

These provisions relate to instituting false, malicious or vexatious suit or criminal proceedings against Scheduled Tribe (ST) members (p), intentionally insulting or intimidating with intent to humiliate ST members in any place within public view (r), abusing any member of ST by caste name in any place within public view (s) and attempting to promote feelings of enmity against ST members by words spoken or written or by any visible representation (u).

A police officer said the case was registered on Soren’s complaint that when he reached Ranchi, he learnt about the ED action at the south Delhi house rented by the state government.

Soren alleged that an operation was conducted at Jharkhand Bhawan, and Shanti Niketan to harass and defame him and his community since he belongs to a Scheduled Tribe tribal community and the officials are non-tribal.

“This search was done without any information to me and this has disgraced him in the eyes of the general public,” the official said, quoting the FIR.

In the complaint, Soren said the ED officers conducted the search operation at Jharkhand Bhawan in Delhi and at the south Delhi house rented by the state government to “harass and malign me and my entire community” on January 29.

Citing media coverage of the searches, Soren said “it is obvious that the abovenamed persons had informed the media of the purposed search so as to create a media spectacle and cause disrepute to me in the eyes of the general public”.

He also contested the ED attempt to link him to the blue BMW car seized from the Delhi house, saying ED officers “leaked selective misinformation” that the car and “huge sums of illicit cash belonging to me” were seized. “I do not own any illicit cash. The abovenamed persons and unknown others…. have done the aforesaid acts intentionally to humiliate me in public,” he said, adding that the ED officers instituted false proceedings and “have given fabricated evidence”