Allegations are mounting against the Jharkhand state government for allegedly fabricating new criminal incidents to obscure existing illegal operations. Opposition leader Babulal Marandi has criticized the government and its systems for making it a practice to create new crimes to hide the reality. The recent Enforcement Directorate (ED) actions targeting the extensive coal operations in Dhanbad have exposed disturbing truths. A particularly alarming development is the alleged order from influential police officers, reportedly benefiting from illicit coal revenues, to ‘permanently remove’ certain operatives of the coal mafias. This is purportedly to prevent them from providing information to the ED. Reports indicate that individuals currently under ED interrogation are being targeted for assassination, in a bid to silence them and prevent the truth from emerging. The state has a history of such tactics, including ‘evidence encounters,’ and has previously had a Director General of Police accused of contract killings and unparalleled corruption, even by ruling party members. Marandi emphasizes the need for the ED to be highly alert, stating that in Jharkhand, it is those who suppress the truth, not those who speak it, who hold sway. When political power, institutional mechanisms, and criminal networks coalesce, the manipulation of justice becomes a foregone conclusion.
