Security has been tightened at the office of the Enforcement Directorate near Ranchi Air port following the summon issued by the ED sleuths to the Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to interrogate him  in connection with its money laundering probe into cases of alleged illegal mining in the state.

The ED had summoned CM Hemant Soren and written a letter to the DGP, Jharkhand seeking deployment of security forces around its office in Ranchi on Tuesday. In its notice to the CM, ED has asked him to appear before it on Thursday.

“The CM has been asked to appear before the investigating officer on Thursday for questioning. Some facts have been revealed during our investigations against his aide Pankaj Mishra which need to be verified,” an ED official has said. 

The Indian Express reports quotes a ‘source’ saying that  “the ED said that one of the questions that it would pose to Soren would be on his signed cheques received from the possession of Mishra.”

The ED had arrested Pankaj Mishra, a close aide of Soren and his MLA representative in the Barhait Assembly constituency, in July this year, and has since filed a prosecution complaint (equivalent to a chargesheet) against him and two others in the case.

According to The Indian Express report,“The ED in its prosecution complaint — the equivalent of a chargesheet – filed against Mishra and others had said that it had recovered, among other documents, “two signed cheques and 31 blank cheques all pertaining to Hemant Soren held with Bank of India” from Mishra’s possession.”