NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth Rs 118.6 million belonging to former chief minister Farooq Abdullah and some others. in connection with Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) scam.
While the book value of these attached properties is Rs 118.6 million, their market value is reportedly Rs 600 to Rs 70 million.
Abdullah is being investigated over allegations of misappropriating Rs 1.13 billion that was sent to the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The allegations pertain to a time when he was president of the JKCA. Abdullah has been questioned by the ED in this case a number of times, the last being in October at Srinagar.
The ED’s action, described by the National Conference (NC) as a case of “political vendetta”, comes in the wake of the Central Bureau of Investigation investigating the case.
The ED issued provisional attachment order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the attached properties are located in Jammu and Srinagar. Two immovable assets are residential, one is a commercial property while three other plots of land have also been attached by the Enforcement Directorate.
While Abdullah has been under investigation for a while now, the timing of the ED action is what has provided grist to the accusations that the ED is following instructions from its political masters. The NC condemned the ED’s actions which it said were unwarranted and unjustified. “There is no evidence worth the name on record to justify the order of attachment of the property. These ancestral assets had been acquired decades back, and there is no justification why these should be attached,” the party said in a statement. “It is nothing except political vendetta and an attempt to silence the leadership and dissuade it from voicing support to political aspirations of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.”
Between 2011 and 2012, the BCCI had given Rs 1.13 billion to the JKCA for the promotion of cricket in the state. It has been alleged that there was misappropriation of Rs 463 million, Frontline reports. Farooq Abdullah, who headed the JKCA then, was named in the chargesheet filed by the CBI.
According to the ED, Farooq Abdullah is an alleged beneficiary of the laundered funds. The ED has also alleged that although the JKCA had a bank account, six new bank accounts were opened allegedly for parking and misappropriating the funds. Cash withdrawals to the tune of about Rs 25 crore without proper justifcation were made, it has alleged.
Omar Abdullah, NC leader and Farooq Abdullah’s son, rubbished these allegations and claimed that the attached properties were ancestral and built in the 1970s. “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,” he tweeted. He said his father would fight the case in the courts.
In October, Farooq Abdullah was twice summoned by the ED in connection with the case. The summons, which followed the creation of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), were seen as an arm-twisting tactic by a large section of the political and intellectual elite in Srinagar.
Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister and head of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also ascribed political motives to the ED action. “Attaching Dr Farooq saheb’s properties is sheer political vendetta as was evident from the abuses heaped on PAGD by BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]. People of J&K were least impressed & placed their faith in the alliance. Using agencies like NIA & ED to settle scores shows BJP’s frustration,” Frontline quotes ger as having tweeted.
Yousuf Tarigami of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a four-time legislator from Kulgam and convenor of the PAGD, said the BJP was unnerved by the support the PAGD received in the just-concluded District Development Council (DDC) elections in the state. “Attaching the property of Dr Abdullah is a part of the vindictive politics practised by the Central government to kill dissent and disagreement across the country and the present case has surfaced at a time when the DDC elections have just concluded,” the publication quites him as having said.
