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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today booked Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader and former Bihar minister Dadan Singh on money laundering charges.
The case is the outcome of suspicious, unexplained transactions of several crores of rupees detected by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which forwarded it to the ED for further investigations.
"Suspicious transactions of over Rs 3 crore were noticed last year in just one bank account of Dadan Singh at SBI Secretariat Branch in Patna. It is beyond Singh's known sources of income. He has declared meager annual income of around Rs 4 lakh in his Income Tax returns filed for 2013-14," sources in the ED said.
With the formal registration of Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, Singh, who contested in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections from Buxar, will be summoned by ED officials for interrogation.
"We have just started the investigation after registering the ECIR. Officials are going to probe all his bank accounts and financial links. His hidden assets will also be unearthed. Singh is suspected to have indulged in mass money laundering for himself, as well as others," they said.
As per the ECIR, Singh owns half-a-dozen cars and SUVs of different makes and has a cold storage at Dumraon in Buxar. He has taken loans worth Rs 3.75 crore from banks and ED sleuths are trying to find out how it is being repaid. They suspect that he owns vast tracts of land in and around Buxar and property in Patna too.
The 50-year-old, wrestler-turned-politician popular as Dadan Pahelwan, has thrice been an MLA from Dumraon Assembly constituency in Buxar district before losing in the 2010 state elections. He has a penchant for horse riding.
A class 10 pass, Singh, an accused in around two dozen cases pertaining to attempt to murder, theft, extortion, forgery, rioting, assault on public servants, public mischief and wrongful confinement. He has been accused of forcibly occupying a government bungalow. He also served as a minister in RJD government when Rabri Devi was the Chief Minister.
A known muscleman of his area, Singh left RJD to join Janata Dal (Secular) of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda. He quit it later to join Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Parti (SP) and joined BSP in 2010.
