NE NEWS SERVICE
SRINAGAR, OCT 21
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah appeared before the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday, the second time this week, for questioning in connection with a money-laundering probe into an alleged multi-crore scam in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA).
The 83-year-old former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir was questioned for over six hours on October 19 in the case.
After the questioning on Monday, Abdullah had said he was not worried and would cooperate in the probe.
The last round of questioning took place four days after Jammu and Kashmir’s mainstream political parties, including the NC and the PDP, met at Abdullah’s residence and formed the People’s Alliance for ”Gupkar Declaration”.
ED officials said Abdullah’s statement will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as in the past. He was questioned for the first time in July last year in Chandigarh.
The ED is understood to be questioning Abdullah about his role and decisions are taken when the alleged fraud took place in the association when he was the JKCA president.
The agency’s case is based on an FIR filed by the CBI, which booked former JKCA office-bearers, including general secretary Mohammed Saleem Khan and former treasurer Ahsan Ahmad Mirza.
The CBI had also filed a charge sheet in 2018 against Abdullah, Khan, Mirza as well as former JKCA treasurer Mir Manzoor Gazanffer Ali and former accountants Bashir Ahmad Misgar and Gulzar Ahmad Beigh for the “misappropriation of JKCA funds amounting to Rs 43.69 crore” from grants given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to promote the sport in the erstwhile state between 2002 and 2011.
ED summons aimed at curtailing Farooq Abdullah’s efforts to weave unity among J-K parties: NC
The National Conference on Wednesday expressed anger over the ED summoning party president Farooq Abdullah for questioning for the second time within a week and said these tactics are only aimed at “browbeating” opposition leaders who raise their voice against the BJP”s “divisive politics”.
Abdullah, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in connection with a money-laundering probe into an alleged multi-crore scam in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA). He was questioned for over six hours on October 19 in the case.
His son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah expressed his displeasure and tweeted the party statement on his father’s summoning with a comment: “This on a day when my father turns 84!”
The party lambasted the government for “its agenda of cornering any voices of dissent”.
“How many times will BJP use CBI, ED, anti-corruption bureau and its other agencies to browbeat opposition? The plot has become predictable. Anyone who speaks against the government or musters courage against its divisive politics will be hounded and summoned,” it said.
Terming this ED summons “calculated coercive measures”, NC spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that it is aimed at curtailing Farooq Abdullah”s efforts to weave unity among mainstream political parties in JK.
Calling the repeated ED summons as pressure tactics, he said, “What is it that ED forgot to ask during the six hours it interrogated an 83-yr-old Member of Parliament?”
The government and its agencies, the spokesperson said, has no consideration for a law-abiding citizen who is severely immunocompromised and diabetic.
“Abdullah being treated like this is proof that the BJP is not even interested in a face-saving act and is completely comfortable with being seen as a bully by the nation,” he said.
He said that the “only way to get a clean chit these days is to surrender one’s ideology and join the BJP. We’ve seen this story play out from Assam to Karnataka, from West Bengal to Andhra Pradesh but Dr Abdullah is not going to surrender to the BJP, come what may.”
