The Enforcement Directorate investigation is understood to be linked to alleged illegal activities in the state’s Corbett Tiger Reserve.

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate is conducting raids over a dozen locations in Delhi, Chandigarh and Uttarakhand in an alleged forest scam case linked to former Uttarakhand Minister Harak Singh Rawat, news agency ANI reported quoting sources. During Rawat’s tenure as the state forest minister in the BJP Government, Rawat and some of his departmental officers came under serious allegations related to their involvement in illegal tree cutting and construction in the Pakhro range of Corbett Park under the Tiger Safari Project.

The Forest Survey of India (FSI) claimed in its report that more than 6,000 trees were illegally cut in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) against the permission of 163 for the Pakhru tiger safari. However, the state forest department refuted the FSI’s claims and said that some technical issues needed to be resolved before finally accepting the report.

#WATCH | Enforcement Directorate conducts raids at residences related to former Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat in Dehradun. pic.twitter.com/TU7Qp60ZZM

— ANI (@ANI) February 7, 2024

This isn’t the first time that properties linked to Rawat have come under scrutiny by the ED officials, as earlier, the Uttarakhand Vigilance Team had raided an institute in Dehradun’s Shankarpur and a petrol pump in Chhiddarwala linked to him.

Rawat had quit the BJP ahead of the 2022 Uttarakhand assembly polls and joined the Congress.