Key Points:
- On June 25, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the Nagpur residency of the former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh on the Rs. 4 crore money trail.
- “The money from the bar owners was deposited into accounts of shell firms and then diverted to an entity linked to the Deshmukh family,” said a source, as reported by TOI.
- Deshmukh’s aides Sanjeev Palande and Kundan Shinde were arrested by the ED past midnight.
Maharashtra’s former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has been in a lot of trouble lately. It started from Ambani’s Antilia bomb scare to Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Vaze and finally leading it to the home minister under a money laundering case.
On Friday, June 25, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the Nagpur residency of the former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. It’s not just this residence but a part of the series of raids that took place at Deshmukh’s premises in Mumbai and Nagpur.
As reported by The Indian Express, the ED has established a money laundering of Rs. 4 Crore which were allegedly paid by 10-12 bar owners in Mumbai to Anil Deshmukh over the span of three months.
On the same information, the ED searched and raided at four locations among which happened to be Deshmukh’s residence. Former home minister Anil Deshmukh’s official bungalow, Dnyaneshwari, at Malabar Hill plus his homes at Worli in Mumbai and Nagpur, and the houses of his personal secretary and personal assistant, Sanjeev Palande and Kundan Shinde, respectively, were among those searched on Friday.
“The money from the bar owners was deposited into accounts of shell firms and then diverted to an entity linked to the Deshmukh family,” said a source, as reported by TOI.
The Enforcement Directorate officials took along Palande and Shinde to their Ballard Estate office in order to continue questioning. After hours of questioning, both of them were arrested past midnight. These arrests were the first amongst the corruption allegations on Deshmukh.
On Saturday, Palande and Shinde will be produced before the court.
As reported by Hindustan Times, the ED, when were in process of finding leads at Nagpur, questioned Deshmukh’s sons, Sahil, Rishi, and his wife, Aarti, on their money transactions.
In the month of April, the ED had searched the Nagpur residence of a businessman named Sagar Bhatewar, who was known to be close to Deshmukh. Bhatewar was also the director of firms that were controlled by Deshmukh.
The investigation of the matter was ordered after former Mumbai Police chief Param Bir Singh accused Deshmukh of ordering some policemen to collect ₹100 crore from businesses. On the matter, Deshmukh has denied all the allegations on him.
