ED officer accused of graft in Kerala transferred to Shillong

KOCHI: Shekhar Kumar, assistant director with Kochi unit of Enforcement Directorate (ED), who was arraigned as an accused by Kerala vigilance and anti-corruption bureau (VACB) in a corruption case, has been transferred to Shillong as part of a nationwide reshuffle of ED officers. Kumar was named as the first accused in a case registered by VACB based on a complaint by a Kollam-based businessman, Aneesh Babu, who was allegedly asked to pay a bribe of Rs 2 crore to evade an ED investigation. However, the state agency did not arrest or question him. Vigilance had arrested Wilson Varghese, Mukesh Kumar and a chartered accountant, Ranjit Warrier, in the case. The complainant, a cashew trader, was asked to appear before the ED through a summons in 2024 in connection with a money laundering probe. Subsequently, Wilson called up Aneesh Babu and allegedly told him that he would be off the hook if he paid Rs 2 crore to the ED official.The complainant was asked to pay Rs 2 lakh in cash on May 15 this year, and vigilance caught Wilson red-handed while accepting the money.ED's special task force in Delhi later launched a probe into the bribery allegations against its official. ED sources rubbished Babu's allegations, saying it was an attempt to trigger a media trial with an intent to malign the image of the agency and deflect attention from the ongoing PMLA investigation against him.