ED searches paternal home of Chhattisgarh IAS officer Ranu Sahu and CHiPS office

RAIPUR: Enforcement Directorate officials on Tuesday swooped down on the paternal home of Chhattisgarh IAS officer Ranu Sahu in Panduka village of Gariaband district, and are questioning her mother and a cousin.
Ranu Sahu is the Raigarh collector, and her official residence was searched by ED last week. On the eighth continuous day of the searches and investigations, a team of 12 ED officers arrived at Sahu's house in Panduka at 5.30am.Her mother Laxmi Sahu is a zilla panchayat member and her cousin Shailendra Sahu, a Congress worker, is in the realty business.
ED teams are also searching the office of Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS), where IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, who was arrested on October 13, was serving as CEO. On Tuesday, ED officials, with CRPF personnel providing security, knocked on the doors of Ranu Sahu's native home and that of her cousin Shailendra.
Sources said that the family members initially resisted the ED team, but had to let them in. The search was on at the time of filing this report on Tuesday evening. Sources say ED is looking for documents related to land deals.
Sources said that ED teams are searching eight premises, including three in Gariaband related to Ranu Sahu, three other places of an officer of the tribal welfare department in Korba district, an assistant engineer's house in Raipur and the office of CHiPS.
The ED operation began on October 11 with simultaneous searches at 40 premises. On October 13, IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, Raipur-based businessman Sunil Agrawal and Laxmikant Tiwari were arrested and are now in ED custody.
Agrawal and Tiwari are close to businessman Suryakant Tiwari, who was also earlier picked for questioning by ED and I-T and is declared as “absconding” by ED.
Sahu was untraceable for two days but returned with a letter on October 13 that she had resumed duty after a twoday leave on October 10-11, during which she was in hospital in Hyderabad for a minor surgery.
The ED has also searched the collectorate offices in Raigarh and Korba, where Sahu was previously posted as collector. Vishnoi is a 2009-batch IAS officer and Sahu a year junior.