Guwahati: The Enforcement Directorate arrested a senior chhattisgarh official in connection with a coal extortion case.
According to reports, the officer has been identified as Soumya Chaurasia, who holds the position of Deputy Secretary under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
Prior to the searches by the ED, the Income Tax Department raided homes connected to the arrested government official because she was on the radar of central agencies in a case involving illegal mining. She was arrested after the ED called her in for interrogation.
Reportedly, Soumya was questioned by central investigation authorities multiple times over the previous two months.
The ED conducted search operations and made arrests under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 in connection with a scam in which a cartel made up of senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen allegedly demanded an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne for each tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh.
Notably, the Income Tax Department’s FIR led the ED to open a money laundering investigation. Additionally, the ED is looking into every aspect of this plot including the principal mastermind, the high officials’ roles in facilitating the fraud with impunity and the recipients of the illicit proceeds of crime.
Chhattisgarh CM Baghel issued a number of cautions to the central investigation agencies and accused the officers of using “violence and intimidation” while performing their jobs on Sunday. He claimed that reports of ED and IT officials using violence were getting to him and that this behaviour was intolerable.