RANCHI: In yet another raid conducted by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday, Rs 3 crore, allegedly linked to suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal, was recovered from the premises of one Md Ezhar Ansari in Hazaribagh. Ansari, a coal trader, allegedly used to collect and manage ‘cut money’ on behalf of the then mining secretary Pooja Singhal and also has close links with several politicians and bureaucrats. The ED on Friday conducted searches at 14 locations of Ezhar Ansari and Ashok Kumar, said to be closely associated with Singhal, at Ranchi, Ramgarh and Hazaribagh.
Ashok Singh is a former project director at Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation and enjoyed Singhal’s protection. Notably, the state government had brought a policy to provide coal to small and medium enterprises at a cheap rate through coal mines of the Central government undertakings.
The JSMDC became the nodal agency for the supply of coal to such small and medium enterprises. It is said that Ashok Kumar and some other officials of JSMDC used to charge a commission from these enterprises and the coal was sold in the open market. The ED, after an interrogation for over 15 hours, had arrested Singhal on May 11 last year in a money laundering case linked to alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds and other charges.