New Delhi:
Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Sunday alleged that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was 'planting evidence' to 'implicate' former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the case in which he has been arrested. Ranchi's special PMLA court had on Friday sent Soren, arrested in a money laundering case related to an alleged land fraud, to ED custody for five days.
Read also
ED had arrested Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Soren on the night of January 31 after interrogating him in the case for seven hours. Hemant Soren had resigned from the post of Chief Minister before being arrested by the federal agency. Sibal, who is representing Soren in the Supreme Court, said, “What is happening in this country? There is no transaction, relationship, telephone conversation or meeting between Bhanu Pratap (tax department officer arrested by ED under ECIR) and Hemant Soren. On what basis have they (ED) arrested Hemant Soren?
Sibal said in a press conference held here, “They did not take Pratap into custody first because they wanted to take Hemant (Soren) into custody and then take a production warrant and make him (Pratap) say that 'Hemant is involved'.” . Sibal said that now Pratap will be taken into police custody and an attempt will be made to 'implicate' Soren.
He said, “You say that in April 2023 you knew that Hemant was involved, but you did not interrogate Bhanu Pratap about this, did not take him into police custody. Now they will take him into custody and implicate Hemant.'' He said that ED is making a 'criminal' the main witness in this case.
Asked if he meant that the investigating agency was fabricating evidence against Soren, Sibal said, “That is their job”. He said, “Trying to trap people, destabilizing governments and ensuring that sitting chief ministers are charged on the basis of fabricated evidence, this is the credibility of this organization (ED). This is the sad situation of the country.
He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to target opposition leaders, remove them from power and prevent them from campaigning in the 2024 elections. Sibal said, “They want to do politics of fear and misuse agencies to return to power.”
read this also-:
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by the NDTV team and is published directly from a syndicated feed.)
