Tamil Nadu Police have arrested an Enforcement Directorate officer in Madurai for allegedly extorting Rs 20 lakh in cash from a state employee. As part of the ongoing investigation, police are searching the central agency’s offices in the city and Mr Tiwari’s residence, and have seized several documents.

This is the first time Tamil Nadu has arrested an Enforcement Directorate officer.

According to the state’s Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, the officer in question – Ankit Tiwari – originally demanded Rs 3 crore to “avert legal action” in a case that had already been settled.

Mr Tiwari, the DVAC said, contacted the employee on October 29 and claimed he was acting on instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office, and summoned him to the agency’s Madurai office.

When the government employee came, Mr Tiwari accosted him and demanded the Rs 3 crore bribe, which he later brought down to Rs 51 lakh claiming he had “spoken to his superiors”.

The first installment of Rs 20 lakh was paid on November 1. The government employee was subsequently harassed by Mr Tiwari for the remaining Rs 31 lakh. On November 30 he lodged a complaint with the DVAC and, at 10.30 am today Friday, the department arrested Ankit Tiwari.

DVAC sources told NDTV Mr Tiwari was caught “red-handed” following a high-speed car chase. 

The DVAC is also investigating if Mr Tiwari received money from threatening or blackmailing others.

State Vs ED In Madras High Court

Mr Tiwari’s arrest comes as the state government and the central investigative agency are at loggerheads over the latter’s summons to five district collectors; this is in connection with a probe into alleged money laundering linked to illegal sand mining.

In a moment of relief for Chief Minister MK Stalin’s administration, the Madras High Court this week stayed the summons for three weeks. It did not, though, stay the probe.

The summoned collectors – from the Ariyalur, Vellore, Thanjavur, Karur and Tiruchirapalli districts – and the state government have been given three weeks to respond to the ED.

READ | “Completely Illegal”: Probe Agency Summons To 5 Tamil Nadu Officers Paused

The state, though, had argued the ED does not have the authority to make such demands and that its summons to the five collectors is against the spirit of federalism.

It was also argued the central agency ought to seek such details, if needed, only via the state government, and that it could not conduct an inquiry without the latter’s consent.

Citing a survey by an expert from the Indian Institute of Technology, the ED claimed illegal sand mining worth Rs 4,500 crore had taken place across Tamil Nadu in two years.

DMK Mouthpiece Slams Enforcement Directorate

The ED official’s arrest comes on the day the ruling DMK’s mouthpiece, Murasoli, accused the BJP that is in power at the centre of using the agency to malign its image. The newspaper questioned the ED’s claim of corruption, challenging the basis of the alleged “arbitrary” figure and demanding proof.

“The BJP uses Enforcement Directorate to create a black mark against DMK. ED said some random numbers… that, in two years, Rs 4,730 crore of corruption was uncovered in sand mining. How do they know how much sand was in the river two years ago? They are just making up these numbers… “

With input from agencies

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Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni posted a selfie with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“Good friends at COP28. #Melodi,” Ms Meloni, who came to Delhi in September to attend the G20 summit, wrote in the post.

PM Modi also met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Turkey President RT Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, among other leaders.

PM Modi had a packed day-long schedule as he addressed the four sessions at the UN climate change conference.

The Prime Minister had the opportunity to discuss ways to promote clean and green growth, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said. Issues of bilateral and regional interests were also discussed in his meeting with many leaders on the sidelines of the summit, Mr Kwatra said.

Global climate negotiations largely avoided mentioning fossil fuels for decades, until Glasgow’s COP26 agreed to “phasedown” unfiltered coal power and the “phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

Momentum has built since then on a more ambitious pledge to move away from all fossil fuels, and the UN’s former climate chief Christiana Figueres said an unprecedented surge in renewables and electric vehicles gave her optimism that the world can still achieve its climate goals.

Those centre on the 2015 Paris deal, which saw nearly 200 nations agree to limit global warming to “well below” two degree Celsius since the pre-industrial era, and preferably a safer threshold of 1.5 Celsius.

In his COP28 speech on Friday, PM Modi called on all nations to work together to cut global emissions drastically, and announced a “green credit” initiative that focuses on creating carbon skins with people’s participation.

He said India’s emissions are very low compared to other nations whose population is much less. “India’s population is 17 per cent of the global population, but in global carbon emissions India is only at 4 per cent. We are moving fast in achieving the NDC targets. In fact, we reached our non-fossil fuel targets nine years before the deadline,” PM Modi said, referring to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

“We do not have much time to correct the mistakes of the last century,” PM Modi said, and asked every nation to work sincerely to meet their NDC targets.

 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday that the pause in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict ended due to Hamas, claiming the terror group ‘reneged’ on commitments.

While speaking to the media at Dubai airport, he said, “I made clear that after the pause it was imperative that Israel put in place clear protections for civilians and for sustaining humanitarian assistance going forward. And as we’ve seen just today, Israel has already moved out on parts of that, including sending out information, making it clear where people can be in safe areas in Gaza. And we’ll be looking at that going forward. It’s very, very important.”

He highlighted that the end of the pause resulted from Hamas breaking commitments, citing a terrorist attack in Jerusalem and firing rockets before the pause ended.

“It’s also important to understand why the pause came to an end. It came to an end because of Hamas. Hamas reneged on commitments it made. In fact, even before the pause came to an end, it committed an atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem, killing three people, wounding others, including Americans. It began firing rockets before the pause had ended. And as I said, it reneged on commitments it made in terms of releasing certain hostages.”

Blinken reiterated US support for peace in the region, and said that the US is focusing on the release of Israeli hostages.

“We’re determined to do everything we can to get everyone home, get them reunited with their families, including pursuing the process that worked for seven days. We had seven days of a pause; seven days of people coming home and being reunited with their families,” he said.

“So, we’re on that almost hour by hour. But meanwhile, we’ve also been very clear that we support Israel and its efforts to make sure that October 7th never happens again. We’ve also been very clear about the imperative of doing that in a way that puts a premium on protecting civilians and making sure that humanitarian assistance gets to those who need it. So that’s what we’re focused on, and we’re doing both at the same time,” he added.

“We remain intensely focused on getting everyone home, getting hostages back. It’s something that I also worked on today. So, we’re still at this. We’re also very much focused, as we’ve been all along, on trying to make sure that this conflict doesn’t spread, that it doesn’t escalate in other places. But we’re also using our diplomacy to look at not only what’s happening today and how we’re handling that, but also what happens the day after in Gaza and how we can get on the path to a just, lasting, and secure peace for Israelis, for Palestinians – in fact, for everyone in the region. And that’s also a big focus of our diplomacy,” he added.

This statement from US Secretary of State Blinken comes as the agreed truce between Israel and Hamas expired after seven days, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas resumed their war in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning after a week-long truce ended with the two sides failing to agree on the release of more hostages held by the Hamas group.

Israeli jets struck Hamas targets in Gaza soon after the cease-fire finished at 7 a.m. local time.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Blinken held a crucial meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Thursday (November 30), marking his second visit to the West Bank since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, as reported by CNN.

His visit was in the backdrop of increased Israeli settler violence in the region following the October 7 attack on Israel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)