Ranchi: Sleuths from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Pankaj Mishra, the aide of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, in an illegal mining case. He is scheduled to be produced before the Special PMLA Court on Wednesday.
Mishra was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The move came days after the agency stumbled upon cash amounting to Rs 11.88 crore parked in 37 bank accounts related to Mishra. The seized amount belonged to Mishra, Dahoo Yadav, and their associates.
Following the arrest on Tuesday, Mishra was asked to appear before the ED office at Ranchi for questioning. Later, he was taken into custody after his daylong interrogation. After his medical examination at the Sadar Hospital, Mishra was taken to Kotwali police station.
Earlier, the ED had issued reminders to Pankaj Mishra to appear before the agency's office for questioning, but he had failed to appear, citing health reasons. On the other hand, BJP's Godda MP Nishikant Dubey took to Twitter to take a jibe at Pankaj Mishra. "Came to know about Pankaj. He was feeling scared and crying like a child. Why this childish behaviour? Confess to them (read ED) frankly and get rid of worries, the rest has been taken care of by Dahoo Yadav," his tweet reads.
Read: ED arrests Jharkhand CM Soren's political aide on money laundering charges
"Pankaj failed to escape the ED's dragnet and I was expecting that he might be arrested. He was arrested by the ED in the mining scam. Now, the Jharkhand government's door of corruption will come crashing down," the Godda MP said in another tweet.
Earlier on July 8, the ED had raided places linked to Pankaj Mishra and his associates. Besides, the agency had issued summons to Pankaj Mishra, Dahoo Yadav, Bacchu Yadav, and Nimai Sheel for questioning, most of whom have been making rounds of the ED office for the last four days. But, Pankaj Mishra was evading the investigating agency, but finally visited the ED office on Tuesday.
Earlier, the ED had arrested the former mining secretary, of the Jharkhand government, Pooja Singhal, in the MNREGA scam. But a further probe by the agency and recovery of a huge sum of money in the MNREGA scam---the sleuths from the ED drew an inference that both the scams were linked.
