Sending another shockwave to the political fraternity of poll-bound Chhattisgarh, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday morning mounted a massive search and seizure operations at over 15 locations in Raipur, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Dhamtari, Mahasamund and Korba districts, covering multiple rice millers and senior state government officials from Chhattisgarh State Co-operative Marketing Federation (CG-MARKFED). ED’s fresh crackdown has been dubbed as ‘Naya NAN Ghotala’ (new rice milling scam) in Chhattisgarh, wherein a group of government officials, in connivance with top rice millers, had formed an illegal cartel, which took ‘commission and cuts’ for the procurement. Preliminary estimates suggest the rice milling scam to the tune of Rs 600 crore. The ED swoop stems from an Office Memorandum (OM) of Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing, which had then conducted searches on 15 individuals, mostly the rice millers, in addition to two senior officials of CG-MARKFED in the month of July 2023. The taxmen had then also covered the residence of former Managing Director (MD) of CG-MARKFED Manoj Soni, an Indian Telecom Service (ITS) officer of 1995-batch, in addition to Korba District Marketing Officer (DMO) Pritika Kerketta and Bilaspur DMO Jasveer “The searches then had revealed that a well-organised group of rice millers under the patronage of CG-MARKFED officials were running a syndicate extorting ‘Rs 40 per quintal’ on rice milling after state government’s procurement and how,” a senior official, who was part of the fairly wide-spread search operations, told The Hitavada, on anonymity condition.

 

Just fortnight ago, the Income Tax Department through their OM ‘Sharing of Information with ED’ explained about the entire nexus and modus operandi of the syndicate, which was running a well-flourished extortion scam of ‘rice milling’ in Chhattisgarh. To corroborate their findings, the taxmen also shared crucial digital evidence retrieved from the mobile phones and laptops of all those covered in their searches. “Searches were strictly carried out on the residential premises of 15 individuals, fanned across different locations in Raipur, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Mahasamund, Dhamtari and Korba districts respectively. Most of those brought under the ambit of search are rice millers, while three of them are senior state government officials including District Marketing Officers (DMOs) of Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) posted and a senior bureaucrat earlier posted in Food and Civil Supplies Department. The searches were conducted under Section 17 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA),” a senior official in the federal agency, who wished not to be quoted. According to this official, unaccounted cash to the tune of over Rs 1 crore were seized, in addition heaps of incriminating paper trails and digital evidence from mobile phones, personal laptops and other digital storage devices.

 

“The searches were likely to continue till late Saturday evening as scrutiny and compilation of documents and cloning of digital evidence takes a considerable amount of time. This evidence links all the individuals involved in the scam with each other, which would be corroborated at the later stage of investigation,” he added. So much so that the federal agency swoop also enveloped Gopal Modi, Treasurer of Korba District Bharatiya Janata Party and his brother Dinesh Modi, both in rice milling and paddy transport business. A 5-member team of ED officials at around 6 am made their way into Gopal Modi’s huge residential bungalow, situated at Sitamani area in Korba, from both front and back. Gopal Modi is also the former President of Rice Millers Association. In Raipur district, a rice mill situated in Tilda-Neora, namely M/s Amit Chawal Udyog LLP, owned by Rajendra Kumar Agrawal and Tulsi Agrawal, was being searched, whereas in Durg district, the federal agency sleuths were rummaging through heaps of documents at the Deepak Nagar situated residential premises of Kailash Rungta, who also happens to be the incumbent President of Chhattisgarh Rice Millers Association (CRMA). Similarly, in Durg, residences of Kishor Sortex And Rice Mill Private Limited owners Krishna Kumar Agarwal and Kamal Kumar Agrawal at Kadambari Nagar were also being searched. Kamal Agrawal also owns Hotel Cambean, situated near Green Chowk, Station Road in Durg. In Kurud block of Dhamtari district, the residence of Roshan Chandrakar was also covered, but he managed to escape before ED sleuths could grill him.

 

Similarly, searches were also underway at the residence of Ashish Khandelwal, owner of M/s Annapurna Rice Mills, situated at Jangalpur area of Rajnandgaon. Apropos, in Mahasamund district, residence of former President of District Rice Millers Association Parasmal Chopra, situated on Bagbahara road, was also being rummaged by ED sleuths. Most importantly, the plush residential premise of Manoj Soni, situated at Khushi Vatika in Amlidih area of Mahaveer Nagar, was also brought under the ambit of ED search ops. A former Special Secretary, Food and Civil Supplies, with additional charge of Managing Director, Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) as well as Food and Civil Supplies Corporation, officer Manoj Soni was shunted by Election Commission of India (ECI) on October 11 after citing dereliction of election duty. Moreover, office and residences of District Marketing Officers (DMO) of CG-MARKFeD Sunil Singh (Dhamtari), Bhowmick Baghel (Durg) and Jasveer Singh Baghel (Raipur) were also being thoroughly searched by the federal agency officers and incriminating documents found there were minutely scrutinised. However, in order to ensure that search and seizure operations face no untoward situation, ED officials were also accompanied by armed troopers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).