A special court in Ranchi on May 16 remanded Jharkhand Minister and Congress leader Alamgir Alam in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for six days.
The Rural Development Minister was arrested in a money laundering case by the Central agency on Wednesday.
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When he was produced before the Special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) Court on Thursday, the ED sought a 10-day remand for questioning him, but the court granted six days.
The ED had last week arrested Mr. Alam’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Sanjiv Kumar Lal and the latter’s domestic help after the seizure of more than ₹36 crore from a flat linked to them.
After PMLA Court judge P.K. Sharma granted the remand, Mr. Alam was sent to the Hotwar jail. His remand period will start on Friday.
According to sources, tenders were being allotted in his department allegedly on payment of commission. Many bureaucrats are likely to be questioned in the coming days, they said.
After the recovery of cash, the ED sent summons to Mr. Alam on May 12 and asked him to record his statement on May 14. The questioning continued on May 15, after which he was arrested.
‘Corruption at its peak’
Following the arrest, BJP national general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Arun Singh demanded Mr. Alam’s removal from the Cabinet. While addressing the media at the party office in Ranchi, he slammed the State government and said corruption was at its peak in the State. The government was being run by land-stone-sand-liquor mafia, he said.
Mr. Singh said Chief Minister Champai Soren should immediately remove him from the Cabinet.
Mr. Singh said he was surprised that even after the arrest, Mr. Alam had not resigned. “Due to the politics of appeasement, the State government has been doing nothing against him. Alamgir Alam is the one who had brought Tablighi Jamaat people from different places and sent them to Bengal flouting rules during the COVID period. That time also, the State government remained silent and did not act against him,” Mr. Singh said.
