ED freezes assets worth Rs 82L of Khirod’s firm

New Delhi: Deposits and shares worth Rs 82 lakh were frozen after the ED conducted raids against a social welfare organisation related to the deceased brother of a BJD MLA in Odisha as part of a bank fraud-linked money laundering probe.

The searches were undertaken on December 18 at four locations in Odisha (Sambalpur) and Delhi in connection with an investigation against Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA), run by late Khirod Chandra Mallik, the federal agency said in a statement issued on Friday. Mallik is the brother of former minister and Biju Janta Dal (BJD) legislator Pramila Mallik.

There was no immediate response from Pramila Mallik, who represents the Binjharpur constituency (Jajpur district) in the Odisha Assembly and has served as the revenue and disaster management minister in the Naveen Patnaik government.

“BISWA was being run in the guise of financing self-help groups (SHGs) and joint liability firms. Khirod Chandra Mallik mis-utilised the funds and also started accepting deposits from the public, which was not allowed as per RBI guidelines,” the agency alleged. The group, according to the Enforcement Directorate, was also involved in a “bank loan fraud” of more than Rs 200 crore.

The agency also claimed that 505 “suspected benami accounts” of individuals and SHGs and signed and unsigned cheque books were recovered during the searches. An amount of more than Rs 72 lakh kept in 505 bank accounts has been frozen and shares worth Rs 10 lakh have been seized along with a number of “incriminating” documents like sale deeds, cheque books and digital devices, the ED said.

The money laundering case of the ED stems from an FIR of the Odisha Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and another such complaint filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.