In the alleged land-for-jobs scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids on various relatives of former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Friday across Delhi, the National Capital Region (NCR), and Bihar.
According to reports, the raids were carried out at the homes of Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti and others in Delhi, as well as RJD leader and former MLA Abu Dojana in Bihar. According to sources, the searches are taking place in around 15 different places throughout Delhi, NCR, and Bihar.
Several ED teams conducted simultaneous searches at these locations, which included the accused’ and beneficiaries of the suspected land-for-jobs scam’s residential and office properties.
After submitting an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and taking cognizance of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case against Lalu Prasad in the matter, the ED conducted these searches under the terms of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
These searches were conducted by the government agency just days after a CBI team questioned Lalu Prasad in connection with the land-for-jobs scam. The CBI questioned Lalu Prasad for over five hours in two sessions on Tuesday.
The CBI also questioned Lalu Prasad’s wife, former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, for more than five hours on Monday at her Patna (Bihar) residence.
The CBI has already filed a charge sheet in the case against Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi, and 14 others on criminal conspiracy and Prevention of Corruption Act violations. Last month, a Delhi court summoned Lalu Prasad and the other accused to appear in court on March 15.
So far, the CBI has detained three people in connection with the case: Bhola Yadav, an officer on special duty to Lalu Prasad when he was railway minister; Hridayanand Chaudhary, a railway employee and accused beneficiary of the scam; and Dharmendra Rai, another suspected beneficiary.
The CBI claims that between 2004 and 2009, when Lalu Prasad was the Railway Minister, he and some of his family members received plots of property as bribes for jobs at the Indian Railways. In connection with the investigation, the agency also conducted searches at roughly two dozen places in August of last year.
