New Delhi: Three days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out searches at over half a dozen premises linked to suspended AAP leader Tahir Hussain, the financial probe agency on Friday once again raided his home here in connection with its money laundering probe.
According to ED sources, the agency sleuths carried out searches at Hussain's residence in northeast Delhi's Chand Bagh area. According to ED sources, the agency sleuths carried out searches at his premises to look for the documents pertaining to his companies and the financial transactions.
On June 23, the financial probe agency team carried out searches at four locations in northeast Delhi and two locations in Uttar Pradesh's Noida. The sources had said that the raids were carried out at Hussain's Khajuri Khas residence and at companies allegedly controlled by his wife and children. The source had also disclosed that the four-storey building in Khajuri Khas is owned by Hussain and houses the office of Show Effect Advertisement Private Limited.
According to the ED, the suspended AAP leader is also the director of two more companies - Show Effect Worldwide Private Limited and Essence Cellcom Private Limited. The ED action comes almost three weeks after it registered a case of money laundering against Hussain, who is currently in judicial custody. The ED had registered a case against Hussain and the Popular Front of India for money laundering and funding of riots in northeast Delhi.
A senior ED official wishing not to be named told IANS, "We have filed a case of money laundering against Hussain and PFI." The official said that Hussain and PFI have been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The PFI is already facing a case from the central financial probe agency for their alleged role in the funding of the anti-CAA protests across the country.
The ED has taken cognisance of number of FIRs filed by Delhi Police Crime Branch to probe the alleged money laundering and routing of illegal funds by Hussain, PFI and others to purportedly sponsor the communal riots that killed over 52 people in the last week of February in northeast Delhi. The ED is probing the funding and source of income which Hussain allegedly received for 'inciting' violence in northeast Delhi.
After the Delhi violence, the role of Hussain came out as from his house the police recovered several petrol bombs as well as acid pouches. His house in Khajuri Khas area of northeast Delhi was also used for stone-pelting and hurling petrol bombs during the violence. On June 2, the Delhi Police filed two chargesheets in this connection. The chargesheets have been filed in the Karkardooma court by the Crime Branch.
Three special investigation teams were constituted to investigate the cases registered during the riots. First chargesheet has been filed against Hussain under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act. Fifteen persons, including Hussain, were arrested in this case. Investigation has revealed that there was a "deep rooted conspiracy" to cause riots in northeast Delhi.
Delhi Police in its second chargesheet filed in the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the riots has claimed that Hussain was "leading the mob from his house and also from the Masjid near Chand Bagh Pulia giving it a communal colour" and that his location near "the spot where the IB staffer was brutally murdered on February 25 speaks of his evil intentions which ended with the murder."
(IANS REPORT)
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