SRINAGAR: Indian authorities have seized assets worth over Rs120 million of former chief minister of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir Dr Farooq Abdullah in connection with its money laundering probe.
The investigating agency is probing money laundering case linked to financial irregularities in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) and has pressed similar charges against a few others as well.
Meanwhile, the National Conference termed the attachment of Dr Abdullah’s properties as political vendetta meant to settle political score over the revocation of autonomous state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties valued Rs 11.86 crore in connection with its money laundering probe linked to alleged financial irregularities.
The properties include three residential houses in Srinagar; Tanmarg, and one at Village Sunjwan in Jammu as well as commercial buildings, while land at four different places in J&K has also been seized.
Reacting to the development, Farooq Abdullah’s son and NC vice president Omar Abdullah said in a tweet, “The properties attached are largely ancestral dating from the 1970s with the most recent one built before 2003. There can be no justification for the seizures because they fail the very basic test of having been acquired as the proceeds of the ‘crime’ being investigated.”
“Dr Abdullah is in touch with his lawyers & will fight all these baseless charges in the one place that matters — a court of law, where everyone is presumed to be innocent & is entitled to a fair trial unlike in the court of the media or the court of BJP managed social media,” Omar said in another tweet.
Attachment of Dr Farooq’s properties political vendetta: NC
Full statement here:https://t.co/b79EaR7wn9 pic.twitter.com/EzpR7akCbk
— JKNC (@JKNC_) December 19, 2020
The ED statement further said that between 2005 and 2006 to December 2011, JKCA received funding totalling Rs 109.78 crore from the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India).
“Dr Farooq Abdullah, between 2006 and January 2012 (when he was president of JKCA), misused his position and clout by illegal appointments of office bearer at JKCA to whom he gave financial powers for the purpose of laundering of JKCA funds,” the ED statement said.
The ED has claimed that a total of Rs 45 crore was siphoned off, which includes cash withdrawals of Rs 25 crore “with no corresponding justification”.
The matter came to light in the year 2012 when JKCA treasurer Manzoor Wazir filed a complaint to the Jammu and Kashmir police . The J&K high court in 2015 asked the CBI to conduct an investigation into the matter. Farooq Abdullah was questioned in July and October this year.
