ED Searches Political Vendetta, Bid to Deflect Focus from Delhi Collapse: TMC
NEW DELHI: The Trinamool Congress on Monday described the Enforcement Directorate’s searches at premises linked to its Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haque as a “vicious political vendetta”, with party leader Derek O’Brien alleging that the action was intended to divert attention from the recent Delhi building collapse in which students were killed.
The ED conducted searches at seven premises in Delhi, Kolkata and Ranchi as part of a money-laundering investigation linked to Akhbar-E-Mashriq Pvt Ltd. This company publishes the Urdu daily Akhbar-E-Mashriq, and of which Haque is a director. The probe stems from an FIR registered by the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate.
The TMC said the ED search at its Delhi office, which also serves as Haque’s official residence, concluded in about two hours at around 1 pm. However, it alleged that officials remained at the premises for nearly another 10 hours, “awaiting instructions”, before leaving after 10 pm.
The party claimed that the officials found nothing during the search and took away an old mobile phone, an old iPad and some hard disks containing electoral roll data, which it described as publicly available information.
O’Brien alleged that the searches were aimed at shifting public attention from the Delhi building-collapse tragedy. He also said Haque was in Ranchi attending a meeting of Parliament’s Government Assurances Committee when the searches were conducted.
The ED, meanwhile, has said the searches are part of an ongoing money-laundering investigation. Agency officials are probing alleged unaccounted transactions, suspicious funding and other financial irregularities linked to the media company.
The allegations by the TMC and O’Brien represent the party’s response to the searches; the ED’s investigation is ongoing.
