The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth ₹11.86 crore of former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah in a money laundering case linked to the alleged misappropriation of over ₹45 crore from the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) funds.
The attached properties include three residential houses located on Gupkar Road in Srinagar, Tangmarg’s Katipora, and Bhatindi in Jammu, respectively; and commercial buildings on the posh Residency Road in Srinagar. Land parcels at four different places in J&K have also been attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED alleged that Dr. Abdullah’s residence on Gupkar Road and commercial buildings on Residency Road had been constructed on State land obtained on lease. The agency also accused him of having grabbed State/forest land in Bhatindi.
Responding to the development, Dr. Abdullah’s son Omar Abdullah on Saturday tweeted: “My father has seen the media reports regarding attachment of his properties in the ongoing investigation in to the JKCA matter. Not surprisingly the media was tipped off regarding the seizure before he had received any official notice or documentation.”
Stating that the attached properties were largely ancestral dating from the 1970s, with the most recent one built before 2003, Mr. Omar Abdullah said: “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 said his father was in touch with his lawyers and would 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”.
According to the ED, the State’s cricket association had received ₹109.78 crore from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from 2005-06 to December 2011. Dr. Abdullah was the JKCA president from 2006 till January 2012. It is alleged that he made illegal appointments of office bearers, to whom he gave financial powers.
The agency accused Dr. Abdullah of being instrumental in, and a beneficiary of, the laundered funds. Despite the existing regular bank account of JKCA, six new ones had been opened for parking and misappropriating funds. One dormant account in the name of the Kashmir wing of the JKCA was also made operational for the same purpose. Without proper justification, cash withdrawals to the tune of about ₹25 crore were made, it alleged.
The ED’s case is based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2015, on the J&K High Court’s directive. Apart from Dr. Abdullah, the JKCA’s former general secretary Saleem Khan, treasurer Ahsan Ahmad Mirza, and a senior J&K Bank executive Bashir Ahmad Misgar, were named.
In September 2019, the ED had arrested Mr. Mirza, who was the authorised signatory in the bank accounts of JKCA from 2004 till March 2012. The agency has recorded Dr. Abdullah’s statements several times.
