The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday morning conducted raids at multiple locations in Ranchi and claimed to have recovered a huge amount of “unaccounted” cash during searches of premises allegedly linked to Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam’s Personal Secretary Sanjiv Lal.

The raids were conducted at Builder Munna Singh's house in Tejaswini Apartment, Pee Pee Compound, Main Road. Munna Singh is said to be close to Sanjeev Lal. House of Sanjeev Lal's servant Jahangir Alam in Syed Residency located at Gadhikhana Chowk. House of Sanjeev Lal, PA of Alamgir Alam, located in Deendayal Nagar. House of Vikas Kumar, Engineer, Road Construction Department, Sail City. Engineer Kuldeep Minj's house in Chirondi on Bodeya Road. Kuldeep's posting is in Lohardaga. The ED also raided the hideouts of people close to suspended Chief Engineer Virendra Ram.

However, the much-talked raid was at the household help of Sanjiv Lal, Personal Secretary to Alamgir Alam. According to reports, the agency recovered more than Rs 30 crore cash from the Jahangir the household help of Sanjiv Lal, Personal Secretary to Alamgir Alam located at Gadikhana area of State Capital.

Video footage of the search showed wads of currency notes spread in a room that is alleged to be of the domestic help of Sanjiv Lal PS to Alamgir Alam.

Congress leader Alamgir Alam, 70, is Jharkhand's Rural Development Minister and represents the Pakur seat in the state assembly.

The searches were carried out in connection with a money laundering case against the former chief engineer of the rural development department, Virendra K Ram, who was arrested by the probe agency last year.

Veerendra K Ram, accused of amassing property worth 100 Crore, was arrested by the ED in February 2023 in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the implementation of some schemes.

The ED raids which started in the morning continued till evening, several cash counting machines from banks were brought for counting cash.

Apart from this, the ED has recovered Rs 3 crore from the flat of builder Munna Singh in Tejaswini Apartment located in PP Compound. Munna Singh is said to be close to minister Alamgir Alam's PA Sanjeev Lal. According to information received from sources, servant Jahangir Alam has told during ED's interrogation that this money belongs to the minister's PA Sanjeev Lal.

In the matter of recovery of cash from PA Sanjeev Lal's hideout, Minister Alamgir Alam said that before this Sanjeev had been PA of two ministers each. Whatever you people are seeing on TV, we are also seeing the same, now what will be the conclusion of ED will be told later. Sanjeev is my departmental PS, he is a government employee and we hire PS only after seeing him as experienced. Even before this, Sanjeev had been PA to not one but two ministers. It was on that basis that we brought him.

The ED raid which started in the morning continued till evening. ED's Additional Joint Director Kapil Raj reached the residence of Minister Alamgir Alam's PA assistant Jahangir Alam on Monday evening. During the ED raid, when we talked to Jahangir's neighbors and people living nearby, they gave many information on the condition of anonymity. The place where ED has raided and recovered crores of rupees is not a residential area. On one side of the road there are two blocks of four-storey buildings and on the other side there are mud houses made of asbestos. Jahangir's hideout is on the second floor in a block of this building.

The name of the building is Sir Syed Residency. People say that Jahangir used to come by scooter most of the time. He would park his car and go straight to his flat and leave after some time. Many times, at night, big vehicles and well-dressed new faces would come to meet him, but neither Jahangir talked much to anyone nor the people who came to meet him. When the ED raid took place and crores of rupees in cash started coming out, no one could believe that a person who used to travel on a scooter had so much money with him. People living nearby say that the ED took the ill-gotten money, what would have happened if they had given some money to us.