The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday searched at least four locations in Ranchi and one in Jamshedpur in connection with the horse trading case during Rajya Sabha elections of 2010. The CBI team also interrogated an executive magistrate at the district collectorate in Ranchi.
According to the sources in the CBI, as many as five teams of CBI were engaged in the raids at various locations at Ranchi and Jamshedpur to conduct the searches and interrogations.
“The CBI team on Friday searched on at least five locations in connection with the horse trading case during Rajya Sabha elections of 2010. The team also interrogated an executive magistrate Sriram Krishna Kumar, said to be a close neighbor of suspects,” said a CBI official.
The CBI teams searched Ranchi residences of Shantanu Kumar at Tatisilwai and the residences of RJD MlA Sanjay Prasad Yadav and Magistrate Sriram Krishna Kumar at Hawai Nagar. The team also raided the house of one Arjun Kumar Sao at Jamshedpur.
Executive Magistrate Ram Krishna Kumar was also interrogated by the CBI sleuths at his office for hours. Kumar is said to be a close neighbour of RJD MlAs Annapurna Devi and Sanjay Prasad Yadav at the landmark Apartments at Hawai Nagar area in Ranchi.
Sao was deputed as security in-charge at the Jamshedpur airport on the emigration counter. According to Sao, five men came at his home in the morning and said that they want to ask him some questions. “This is the matter of 2010, five people came to me and said that they want to ask some questions from me. I answered them whatever they wanted to know from me,” said Sao without disclosing the questions asked by the CBI sleuths.
It was alleged during the Rajya Sabha elections that the money was offered to the MlAs for voting in favour of a particular candidate which came to the fore after a television channel aired live footage of sting operations conducted during the negotiations. As many as six MlAs were booked by the vigilance bureau for in the cash-for-vote-scam.
The names of the six MlAs include Rajesh Ranjan, Yogendra Sao and Sawna lakra of Congress Prary, Uma Shankar Yadav Akela of (BJP), Simon Marandi and Teklal Mahato of JMM.
In January this year, the Jharkhand High Court ordered the CBI to take over the investigations after the State vigilance bureau was dithering over the case.
The CBI had earlier raided the residences of Annapurna Devi and Sanjay Prasad Yadav in Ranchi and their respective hometowns at Koderma and Godda on April 4, 2013 along with the other three MlAs of RJD, three from Congress and one from JMM in this connection.
The other names of legislators whose houses and offices were raided include Janardan Paswan (Chatra), Suresh Paswan (Deoghar), and Sanjay Singh (Hussainabad). In Giridih, the CBI had also searched the premises of Sarfaraz Ahmed, the Congress MlA from Gandey, along with the other party MlAs Anant Pratap Deo (Bhavnathpur) and Saurabh Narayan Singh (Hazaribagh).
Along with these MlAs, the CBI had also searched the premises of three associates of Rajya SabhaMP from Jharkhand KD Singh on April 4 in connection with the 2010 Rajya Sabha elections held amid allegations that several MlAs had been bribed to vote for a particular candidate.