The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) Department conducted raids on businessman Ajay Kumar Singh in Begusarai, Bihar. He is the brother-in-law of the Finance Minister of Bihar, Vijay Kumar Choudhary.
The officials raided 25 places in Patna, Begusarai, Noida, Ghaziabad, Kolkata and Odisha. Ajay Kumar Singh, known as Karu Yadav, is well-connected with Janata Dal (United) (JDU) state president Lalan Singh.
According to the officials, Ajay Singh runs an iron bar-making factory, a construction company known as KS Construction and does business with mining activities in Odisha. He is also involved in tenders related to the state government, such as from the water resources department and others.
The concerned officials have not made the specifics of the raids public yet. In Begusarai, at around 6:00 AM, raids were conducted at the residence of Singh, located in the Sri Krishna area, which came under the Nagar police station area in Begusarai. Furthermore, Singh’s relative at Matihani was also raided.
To avoid any unfortunate incidents during the raids, the officials arrived with six vehicles with a significant number of police officials. As per the official related to this matter, the teams retrieved incriminating documents, bank accounts, land deeds, financial activity-related paperwork and other important evidence.
The official stated, “The team has scanned the seized documents. As per preliminary investigation, Rs 50 crore tax evasion has been detected during the search. Seized documents hinted at undisclosed investments by some senior government officials besides party functionary who has invested their black money”.
These raids are conducted before the meeting of all opposition parties in Patna on June 23. Apart from RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and JD (U), the conference will be attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, disqualified Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, DMK supremo MK Stalin, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal’s CM Mamata Banerjee, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Earlier this month, in connection with a sand trade case, ED conducted raids at 24 locations in Bihar and Jharkhand, which were reportedly linked with JDU MLC Radha Charan Sah, also known as Seth Ji as well as RJD’s Jagnarayan, Satish Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Sanjay Singh and Subhash Yadav. The individuals mentioned were claimed to be connected to Broadson and Aditya Multicom, which handles the government’s sand-related operations.
In addition to other cities, the raiding teams searched locations in Patna, Danapur, Aurangabad, Bhojpur, Ranchi, Dhanbad, and Hazaribagh. During these raids, officials recovered incriminating documents against the accused.
In February of this year, Income tax officials raided various places in Bihar’s Arrah district related to JDU MLC Radha Charan Sah. The raids were conducted in connection with an alleged multi-crore tax evasion case involving sand trade issues.
Last month on May 16, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 16 conducted searches at nine locations in Bihar’s Patna and Arrah linked to RJD leaders- MLA Kiran Devi and former MLA Arun Yadav in connection with the alleged land-for-jobs scam.
The CBI also conducted searches at the premises of Rajya Sabha MP Prem Chand Gupta at Noida, Delhi and Gurugram in the same alleged land-for-jobs scam. In its chargesheet filed earlier in connection with the alleged land-for-job scam, the CBI had stated that irregular appointments of candidates were made in Central Railways, violating the laid down norms and procedures of Indian Railways for recruitment.
