New Delhi, Mar 3 (IANS): The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Friday that it has attached 152 bank accounts (including 124 STDRs) and one SBI mutual fund account containing a total of Rs 20,65,20,496 belonging to Santosh Construction and its different partners under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The NIA said that these accounts had earlier been frozen under the provisions of Cr.PC, but they were found to be 'proceeds of terrorism' during investigation, warranting their attachment under UAPA.
"Our investigation has established that the accused, Mrityunjay Kumar Singh alias Sonu Singh, one of the partners of Santosh Construction, had a close nexus with top CPI (Maoist) cadres. He had provided funds to Maoist cadre Ravindra Ganjhu, a regional committee member of CPI (Maoist) for furtherance of Maoist activities," the NIA said.
The NIA said the attachment of over Rs 20 crore is the largest to be attached by the agency in a Left-Wing Extremism case.
These facts came to light during the investigation of a case pertaining to an attack on a PCR vehicle in Jharkhand on November 22, 2019, in which four policemen were killed, by the armed cadres of CPI (Maoist) led by Ravindra Ganjhu.
The NIA took over the investigation in June 2020.
"A day before the incident at Beerjangha forest, Mrityunjay Kumar Singh had met Ravindra Ganjhu and gave him Rs 2 lakh, which was used for preparation and execution of the above-mentioned attack. In October 2020, the NIA had seized over Rs 2.5 lakh from Mrityunjay's house, which was also found to be proceeds of terrorism," the NIA said.
The NIA has learnt that Mrityunjay continued to fund CPI (Maoist) activities even after the 2019 incident. He gave Rs 5 lakh to the couriers of Ravindra Ganjhu, namely Baijnath Ganjhu, Rajesh Ganjhu and Kunwar Ganjhu, in January 2020.
The couriers were intercepted with this money and a case was registered at the Chandwa police station in Jharkhand.
"Digging into their deep pockets, Santosh Construction initially moved the Ranchi High Court by way of a writ petition for unfreezing the six major bank accounts. The court had dismissed their plea in August 2022. The accused had also filed an SLP before the Supreme Court, which was also dismissed on January 3," the NIA said.