In view of a ‘look out circular’ issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against journalist Rana Ayyub, officials at the Mumbai International Airport on Tuesday stopped him from going abroad, officials said. The Federal Investigation Agency wants to question and record Ayub’s statement in a money laundering case against him.
The 37-year-old journalist arrived at the Mumbai International Airport to board a flight to London, but was stopped by immigration officials. Soon after, an ED team questioned him at the airport and asked him to join the probe, they said. He is understood to have been asked to appear before the agency at its office here on April 1.
Officials said the ED had first issued summons to him after the agency had provisionally attached an amount of over Rs 1.77 crore in bank deposits earlier this year against him as public donors for Covid-19 relief. were related to alleged irregularities in the charitable funds raised by him from Work during 2020-2021. However, he said, he waived the notice and the agency did not want him to leave the country as it could lead to delay in the investigation and subsequent charge sheet in the court.
Ayub posted about the incident on his Twitter handle. “I was stopped at Indian immigration today, when I was about to board my flight to London to deliver my speech on intimidation of journalists with @ICFJ. I had to travel to Italy right after delivering the keynote address at @journalismfest on Indian democracy,” she posted.
Posting a later tweet, she said these events “have been planned and promoted on my social media for weeks.” “Yet, curiously, the ED summons came to my mail after I was stopped at immigration. What are you afraid of?” Job said. The money laundering case against him stems from a September 2021 FIR by the Ghaziabad Police (Uttar Pradesh) relating to alleged irregularities in donor funds amounting to over Rs 2.69 crore by him through an online crowdfunding platform called ‘Keto’.
The police registered the case on a complaint made by Vikas Sankrityayan, founder of an NGO named “Hindu IT Cell” and a resident of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad. According to the police FIR, the funds were raised as part of three campaigns: funds for slum residents and farmers during April-May 2020; Relief work for Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra during June-September 2020 and assistance for COVID-19 affected people in India during May-June 2021.
Ayyub had dismissed allegations that he had “misused” donor funds raised in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the money-laundering allegations leveled against him were “absurd and wholly malicious”. He had said that he had “clearly shown” to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax Department officials that “no part of the relief operation money has been used for any other purpose” or for his personal expenses. has not been used.
He also said that he has paid income tax of Rs 1.05 crore on the public donation amount received by him. The agency had said that its investigation “makes it abundantly clear that the funds were raised in the name of charity in a purely pre-planned and systematic manner, and were not fully utilized for the funds for which the funds were raised”. Was”.
The ED had said, “Fake bills were prepared by Rana Ayyub in the name of certain entities to claim expenditure on relief work and the expenses incurred for air travel were claimed as expenditure of relief work”. .
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