Patna/Ranchi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized Rs 2.07 crore of diamond jewellery from a Gitanjali Gems showroom in the heart of Patna on Saturday in connection with the Rs 11,400 crore Punjab National Bank scam by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi and added that a Dhanbad jewellery store might have links with the contentious luxury brand.

ED sources said the operations were conducted on the directive and inputs from its New Delhi headquarters, which is monitoring the agency's nationwide action against diamantaire Nirav and his maternal uncle, Choksi, who happens to be MD and chairman of Gitanjali Gems.

In Jharkhand, the ED on Saturday raided four jewellery shops in Ranchi, Bokaro and Dhanbad that started out as franchisees of Gitanjali Gems to find out that contracts of three shops appeared to have expired earlier.

An ED officer said of the four shops, they suspected that Gitanjali Jewels in Dhanbad's Bank More, owned by one Harishankar Agrawal, had continued to do business with Gitanjali Gems. The rest - Nakshatra Jewelry near Capitol Hill at Ranchi Main Road, Gitanjali at Bokaro's Harshvardhan Plaza and a Dhanbad jewellery store at Luby Circular Road owned by P.D. Jhunjhunwala - did not seem to be in franchisee mode with Gitanjali anymore.

In Patna, a team from the ED's Patna zonal office raided the Gitanjali Gems showroom at Maharaj Kameshwar Singh Complex on Fraser Road on Friday evening, the operations of which continued overnight to end around 10am on Saturday with seizure of diamond jewellery worth Rs 2.07 crore.

Though many shops in Patna sell jewellery by Gitanjali Gems, ED zeroed in on this particular shop after they got to know that Nirav directly supplied diamonds to it on credit.

"Nirav used to supply diamond jewellery on credit to this franchisee owned by one Vijay Singh," an ED source said. "Jewellery would be sold and money returned to Nirav. The franchise owner got a cut."

Store manager Upendra Yadav and Santosh Kumar Hota, who coordinates operations for Gitanjali Gems with this shop, were present. "Upendra accepted the diamond jewellery came from Nirav on credit and was sold here. The money was returned to Nirav," the ED source said.