ED conducts searches on IAS couple, top officials & bizmen

Raipur: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday searched at least 40 premises in Chhattisgarh belonging to three IAS officers, including a couple, a senior state service bureaucrat and a former Congress MLA and his businessman son-in-law. Separate teams of ED personnel, with CRPF providing security, launched coordinated searches early in the morning in Raipur, Mahasamund, Raigarh, Korba and Durg districts.The most prominent ones are an IAS couple — Raigarh collector Ranu Sahu and her husband JP Maurya, director of the state mining department. The premises of another IAS officer, Sameer Vishnoi, CEO of Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society, was also searched. ED teams on the premises of state administrative cadre officer Saumya Chaurasia, who is presently posted as deputy secretary in the chief minister’s secretariat.With rumours and speculations swirling around in a charged-up atmosphere, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel termed the raids as “harassment and intimidation” tactics ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.“It’s a clear attempt to harass and intimidate. This is not the first time and not the last, either. They (income-tax and ED) will come again and again and their frequency of visiting the state will increase with upcoming assembly elections,” CM Baghel told reporters.