The Enforcement Directorate (ED) continues its raids in connection to an alleged coal levy scam involving officials, businessmen, and politicians of the ruling Congress in Chhattisgarh. On Wednesday, the ED searched the premises of Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhebar, and paramilitary forces were also seen at the premises of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Anil Tuteja. The raids against a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and other senior political leaders in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh started on Tuesday and are still ongoing.
Officials familiar with the matter said that the ED searched about a dozen premises related to Chhattisgarh Congress treasurer Ramgopal Agrawal, arrested coal businessman Sunil Agarwal, IPS officer and commissioner of Transport and Public Relations Dipanshu Kabra, and others in Raipur, Bhilai, Durg, and Mahasamund in Chhattisgarh, and in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The ED also searched the premises of businessman Kamal Sharda.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel alleged that the agency is only targeting non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states and claimed that the raids are being carried out at the behest of state and central BJP leaders. The ED’s chargesheet mentioned that a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians, and middlemen was extorting an illegal levy of ₹25 per tonne for every tonne of coal transported in the state.
The ED first arrested IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Agrawal who owns Indermani group, and Laxmikant Tiwari, uncle of “absconding” businessman and kingpin Suryakant Tiwari, after launching multi-city raids in the state on October 11. The three have been arrested under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Later, Suryakant Tiwari was also arrested by ED and presented before the court after questioning.
The ED claimed in a statement that a “massive scam” was taking place in coal transportation in Chhattisgarh, under which a “cartel” of politicians, officers, and others was allegedly running a “parallel system of extorting illegal levy,” which is generating about ₹2-3 crore daily. The agency has claimed that the “main kingpin of this scam is Suryakant Tiwari and his associates who entered into a criminal conspiracy to run a parallel system of extorting illegal levy on coal and were doing illegal and unaccounted cash movement.”
