The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Thursday, arrested an IAS officer along with two others after day-long questioning in graft cases on the third day of its leaked raids, reports claimed.

The IAS officer, Samir Vishnoi, coal trader Sunil Agrawal, and Laxmikant Tiwari have been arrested, according to a PTI report. The accused may be produced before a local court during the day.

Laxmikant Tiwari is a close family member of Suryakant Tiwari whose residential and commercial premises were raided in July in which Income Tax sleuths had seized a huge quantity of sensitive documents related to illegal cash transaction and investments.

The ED began its raid on Tuesday morning in more than 15 locations related to Tiwari, his family and associates, Raigarh Collector Ranu Sahu and his husband JP Maurya, IAS Samir Vishnoi former Congress lawmaker Agni Chandrakar along with others. Agency sources claimed to have recovered a huge quantity of gold, Rs 4 crore in cash and documents pertaining to investment in real estate from Vishnoi. He along with his wife and others were detained for yesterday for grilling.

Ranu Sahu who was untraceable so far made her public appearance late last evening and submitted a letter to ED’s investigation officer claiming she was willing to co-operate with the search and investigation operation at her official residence which was sealed given her absence when the raid began on Tuesday. She claimed she was I’ll and underwent an operation in a Hyderabad hospital.

There also were reports suggesting questioning of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s powerful Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasiya by the ED sleuths yesterday.

ED sleuths raided on Tuesday more than 15 premises of business men, politicians and powerful bureaucrats widely believed to be close to Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel who warned last month that his police will act tough against any complaint of hounding by the central agencies.
The much anticipated ED raids comes close on the heels of IT raids in July this year on many of those under raid today. However, the entire operation by the Enforcement Directorate was half aborted as someone privy to the raids, spilled the beans to his contacts in Chhattisgarh government a day before the actual raids took place.

Perhaps it was this internal sabotage by the alleged ‘moles’ in central agencies, several BJP leaders have been complaining about for a long time now to the central government. ‘The Statesman’ carried out a story on 31 August about the rage in saffron party over the reported complicity of certain high ranking officials of Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax (IT) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) with the powerful officers of the state government and certain liquor and mining tycoons who have been under ED and IT radar for quite a long time.

Raids by the central agencies are usually shrouded with utmost secrecy and precision but power corridors and newsrooms in capital Raipur were flooded with information of raids a day before the actual action began on Tuesday.

Business and residential premises of Tiwari’s father-in-law and former Congress MLA Agni Chandrakar, business man Sunny Lunia, Badal Makkar, Ajay Naidu, CA Prakash Malu and liiquor baron Amolak Singh Bhatia have also been raided sources added. However, there is no official word from the agency so far.

Income Tax sleuths earlier in July had raided 29 locations related to same set of people in which they claimed to have stumbled across evidences of collection of more than Rs. 200 crores of illicit money, cash payments made to government officials, and evidences suggesting election funding with the ill-gotten money.

ED sleuths faced resistance from the police when they tried to barged through the iron gates of upscale residencial complex where Saumya Chaurasiya live. The locality was turned into a virtual fortress after IT raids in July.

CM Baghel began to lose his cool with almost all his trusted officers and businessmen coming under IT and ED lense. It was for this reason that that beleaguered Baghel declared last month that his police will take stern action if anyone unnecessarily tormented by these agencies lodges complaint.

“We are not against the Central agencies, they are welcome to operate here. If someone has committed something wrong, then Central agencies should take action against them. But they should not unnecessarily torment people”, he told media persons in his home turf Durg last month.