NAGPUR: A team of Enforcement directorate (ED) flew down from Mumbai on Friday to track the money trail of Rs4 crore allegedly received by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Anil Deshmukh, and searched his house for nine hours.
ED also searched Deshmukh’s official bungalow, Dyaneshwari, at Malabar Hill, his residences at Worli, and detained his personal secretary Sanjeev Palande, of the rank of additional collector, and personal assistant Kundan Shinde, as part of its probe into the money laundering case, a fallout of the CBI’s FIR accusing the minister of corruption.
ED also searched the premises of Palande and Shinde, and directed both to accompany them to their Ballard Estate office for further questioning.
The ED found a financial trail of Rs4 crore which the agency believes to be part of the tainted money collected by dismissed assistant police inspector Sachin Waze from 12 bars and passed on to the former minister.
A source said, “The money collected from the bar owners was deposited into accounts of shell companies and then diverted to an entity associated with Deshmukh family.” In the operation at Nagpur, Deshmukh’s residence-cum-office at GPO Square was the prime focus of the ED sleuths.
In a media briefing in Mumbai, Deshmukh assured his complete cooperation with all central agencies like CBI and ED probing the allegations against him.
He reiterated that former Mumbai CP Param Bir Singh had levelled baseless allegations against him after his transfer due to his dubious role in Antilia gelatin sticks case and Mansukh Hiran murder.
Though the veteran NCP leader, incumbent MLA of Katol constituency, was not present, his son Salil and others were interrogated at length at his house.
The ED, which has registered an offence under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, against Deshmukh and others in May, has so far conducted 10 searches in the city, investigating mostly builders and business associates of the veteran politician and his family members.
In a show of strength on Friday, a mixed force of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), with women commandos, was sent as additional security at Deshmukh’s bungalow, where city police had already deployed bandobast under an ACP and two senior most inspectors.
During CBI searches at Deshmukh’s bungalow on April 24 this year, the CRPF was not present despite almost 13-hour action.
Later on Friday, city police chief Amitesh Kumar also sent additional Riot Control Police (RCP) as NCP supporters started gathering in front of Deshmukh’s bungalow.
NCP leaders raised slogans, and lambasted BJP leadership at the Centre, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and also former state CM Devendra Fadnavis for implicating Deshmukh.
Fadnavis, who was in the city, said it was wrong to politicize the ED and CBI action.
“The agencies are working as per the guidelines laid down by the high court.
The court had ordered CBI to inquire and subsequently other agencies too had started probing,” he said.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar said in Pune that the searches were being initiated out of frustration and such attempts were not new for NCP leaders.
“A new trend of using central agencies by those in power has emerged.
Desmukh is not the first in the party to face such action.
We are not worried,” Pawar said.
During the searches, unconfirmed sources claimed ED team collected documents, photocopies of some records, details of banking transactions like cheque books, passbooks and transaction summaries, statements of various accounts and so on.
The ED team is learnt to have also spent considerable time checking laptops, office and personal computers, collected copies of hard disks, transferred data, and also conducted physical searches in different parts of the house and office, said a source.
The CBI had conducted similar marathon search operations at Deshmukh’s place on April 24.
On May 25, the ED had searched five places, mostly offices and residences of different associates of Deshmukh family.
Later, ED’s Mumbai team had searched residences and offices of his chartered accountant and other associates.