ED Action in Jharkhand: ED has taken Izhar Ansari, close to IAS Pooja Singhal, on remand for 6 days. Yesterday (January 16) ED had arrested Izhar. Today he was produced in the court of the special judge of PMLA. ED had demanded from the court that they have to interrogate Izhar. For this, he should be allowed to be taken on remand. The court accepted the ED’s application and granted remand.
Why was Izhar Ansari arrested?
ED has arrested Izhar Ansari on charges of rigging coal linkage worth Rs 70 crore. On the morning of 16 January, ED had raided his locations in Hazaribagh and Ramgarh. ED had raided Izhar’s residence in Hazaribagh and the factory in Ramgarh at around 7:00 in the morning. After that he was taken into custody. Earlier, ED had sent him summons for questioning. He did not appear even after summons were sent. After which ED took this action. After arresting him, the ED team brought Izhar to Ranchi. After interrogation here, he was arrested at eight o’clock in the night.
Izhar Ansari’s connection with Pooja Singhal
Izhar Ansari is a big coal businessman of Hazaribagh and is considered close to suspended Jharkhand IAS Pooja Singhal. Currently, Pooja Singhal is in jail in a money laundering case. According to the information, ED had seized the mobile phone of Pooja Singhal’s CA Suman Kumar during the raid conducted in connection with the MNREGA scam. On the basis of the details obtained from this mobile phone, ED raided Izhar Ansari’s house for the first time in March 2023. During that time, Rs 3.85 crore in cash was seized from his house. In fact, details of the transactions done with Izhaar were also recorded in Suman’s mobile phone. ED investigation found that after calculating the amount of commission for the coal received in the linkage, Izhar had informed CA Suman about the payment on his mobile phone.