A businessman and his wife, who were under investigation in an Enforcement Directorate case, were found dead at their residence in Madhya Pradesh’s Sihore district on Friday morning.
Manoj Parmar and Neha went to a temple in Susner on Thursday with their three children and after returning late at night, the children went to sleep. After the couple did not wake up on Friday morning, the eldest son went to check on them and found out that they had committed suicide.
The police arrived at 8:30 in the morning and sent the body for post-mortem.
According to the police, Parmar left a five-page note in which he alleged that the ED officials assaulted him during the raid. He claimed that after the ED team saw a photograph of senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at his house, an officer said it was the reason for the raid.
Addressing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in his alleged suicide note, Parmar wrote that he was forced to take the extreme step because the ED was harassing him because he “joined you and worked for the Congress”.
“After my death, the responsibility of these children belongs to you and the Congress, so the message goes that the party is with its workers,” he wrote.
ED officials in Bhopal refused to respond to the allegations. The ED Panchnama report on the case says that “the entire search was carried out in a peaceful manner without hurting any religious or personal sentiments of the people present in the premises. There was no damage to any property.”
Sihore Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar Shukla informed The Indian Express The police have not yet registered an FIR. “We are investigating and have not yet spoken to the family who are busy with the last rites,” he said.
Shukla said that the police is also checking the authenticity of the note left by Parmar. “We don’t call it a suicide note. We cannot comment on that until we investigate. We have recovered some documents which will be investigated,” he said.
Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh wrote in a post on X, “Manoj Parmar’s children gifted a piggy bank to Rahul ji during Bharat Jodo Yatra. Manoj’s house was raided by ED… According to Manoj, the raid was carried out because he was a Congress supporter. Manoj’s I had arranged for a lawyer, but I have to say with great sadness that Manoj was so scared that he and his wife committed suicide this morning. I demand a fair investigation from ED.
BJP spokesperson Ashish Aggarwal responded, “Politicizing over death is the vulture-like nature of the Congress. They are exploiting it for their personal interests.”
issue
The ED had started their investigation based on the FIR and charge sheet filed by the CBI under various sections of the Indian Penal Code against Parmar and a senior branch manager of Punjab National Bank.
According to the FIR and the chargesheet, loans of around Rs 6 crore were received under the Prime Minister’s Employment Creation Program and the Chief Minister’s Youth Entrepreneur Scheme. However, it has been alleged that the funds were misappropriated and misappropriated.
The FIR accused Parmar of forgery and criminal conspiracy. Although he was not involved in loan transactions, he was accused of taking loans worth crores of rupees under government schemes by giving fake quotations, bills and TIN numbers.
In September 2022, the Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition filed by Parmar to quash the CBI FIR registered in December 2017. Parmar’s petition argued that the local police had filed a similar case in October 2017.
Recent raids
On December 5, the ED’s Bhopal zonal office conducted a search operation at four premises in Sehore and Indore as part of their investigation against Parmar and others under the provisions of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
In a press note on December 7, the ED said, “The searches targeted the residences of key persons who benefited from the proceeds of crime or actively assisted such persons in the bank fraud scheme.”
The ED claimed that during the search, “various incriminating documents and details of immovable and movable properties were found and seized.”
“Statements of some persons were recorded, and bank balances of Rs 3.5 lakh were frozen. The ED also identified four immovable properties linked to key persons involved,” it said.
Parmar’s son claimed that the agency had put “mental pressure” on his father. Rajesh, Parmar’s brother and sarpanch of Harshpur, echoed this.
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