Policemen stand guard at the residence of former Raj Bhavan officer-on-special duty Avinash Kumar in Ranchi during a CBI raid on Monday. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi/Bokaro, Aug. 3: The CBI deployed 11 teams today to raid residences of a contractor and two officials formerly working at Raj Bhavan when Syed Sibtey Razi was governor of the state, in a massive operation spread across Jharkhand and Bihar.

Looking into illegal transfer of land running into crores, CBI sleuths searched residences and properties belonging to Avinash Kumar, a 1993-batch Jharkhand IAS officer who was brought in by Razi as OSD at Raj Bhavan since President’s rule was imposed in January; Rajesh Kumar, who was Razi’s secretary; and Sanjiv Singh, alias Guddu Singh, a developer /contractor based in Ranchi.

After Razi left for Assam as governor, Avinash Kumar became secretary of both water resources and civil aviation departments.

CBI spokesperson Harsh Bhal told The Telegraph from New Delhi that the raids were conducted simultaneously at nine places in Bokaro steel city and Ranchi in Jharkhand, and Muzaffarpur and Sitamarhi in Bihar, at several properties owned by the three.

The operations, which began around 6am, continued well into the night.

Bureaucrats and political observers said today’s raids, that came within 10 days of Razi leaving for Assam, were a desperate attempt by the UPA government at the Centre to distance itself from his tenure, dubbed as “corrupt” by the Opposition BJP.

The CBI SP of Ranchi, R.C. Choudhury, said, “The agency has registered a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Avinash Kumar under section 13 (i) (e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Rajesh Thakur and Sanjeev Singh have been booked under Section 109 of the IPC for allegedly abetting the crime,” he said.

He said action was also being taken as per the Excise Act of Jharkhand, but declined to give further details.

CBI sources revealed that cash to the tune of Rs 2.50 lakh, fixed deposit receipts totaling Rs 1.50 crore, documents relating to purchase of assets worth Rs 1 crore along with details of 32 bank accounts had been seized from the Bokaro residence of Avinash Kumar.

This aprt, the agency also got details of flats allegedly bought by him in Ranchi, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Delhi, Lucknow and Barabanki. “These were beyond our wildest imagination,” pointed out a CBI official.

A huge cache of liquor bottles was also seized compelling the agency to seek the help of the state excise department. At Avinash’s Morabadi residence in Ranchi, offcials called for an analyser to test the contents of the innumerable bottles that were seized.

CBI sources said the agency had been tracking the three in connection with illegal transfer of several acres of government land in and around Ranchi over the last few years. On some of the plots, the builder had even built apartments that had been allotted to several senior IAS and IPS officials in blatant violation of government norms.

In Ranchi, the raids, led by Choudhury, were conducted at official and private residences of Avinash Kumar and Rajesh Kumar _ in Morabadi and Ashoknagar _ and at the Ashoknagar residence of contractor Sanjeev Singh.

The raids at Bokaro, conducted under the leadership of CBI deputy superintendent of police N.K. Pandey, yielded documents relating to investments made in insurance and property in the name of relatives, cash certificates and several floppies. None of these assets, the sources claimed, figured in the IT returns filed by the three.

At 6am today, CBI teams raided Rajesh’s house at Cooperative Colony in Bokaro. Another team was at the sector IVC house of Avinash’s father, T.N. Thakur — formerly a senior officer with Bokaro Steel Plant.

But the sleuths could not start immediately as Thakur, who was away on a pilgrimage, returned only around 12 noon. After the search, the CBI also questioned him.