Mumbai, Aug 19 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday carried out searches at 20 locations including Mumbai and Delhi in connection with a money laundering case against Tablighi Jamaat Markaz chief Maulana Saad and others, sources said.
According to top ED sources, the raids were conducted at 20 locations, including seven in Delhi, five in Mumbai, four in Hyderabad, and three in Kerala.
Besides raiding the residence of Maulana Saad in Zakir Nagar area of Delhi, the searches were conducted at the residential premises in Mumbai’s Andheri and SV Road area of a person who is an alleged associate of Saad.
An ED source said that the agency also carried out searches at a money changer centre in front of the Tablighi Jamaat building in Nizamuddin Area of Delhi.
The source said that the financial probe agency got the information that the foreign currencies were exchanged at the said money changer centre in Nizamuddin.
The agency will now seek the details of the last six years, about who all associated with the Tablighi Jamaat exchanged money from the centre and if there was any role of any of the members of the Tablighi Jamaat.
The ED will also seek details of how much amount was exchanged in the last six years. Officials refused to divulge any further information on the identity of the people whose houses were being searched.In April, the ED had lodged a case after Delhi Police filed an FIR against Maulana Saad on charges of culpable homicide and violation of the lockdown rules amid the pandemic outbreak.The ED registered the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against Saad under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on the FIR registered by Delhi Police on March 31. According to ED officials, Saad is among a group of around nine people named in the ECIR filed by the agency, which has initiated a probe to investigate the transactions in the Tablighi trust created by Saad.
The Central probe agency will investigate the funds being received by Saad to organise Tablighi congregations and other activities. Saad’s bank account details and other transactions in the country as well as foreign funding from overseas bank accounts will also be part of the ED probe. Certain donations received by the Islamic organisation from foreign and domestic sources are also under the scanner of the agency.
In an audio message released after the Delhi Police case, Saad had said he was exercising self-quarantine after several hundreds who visited the congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz tested positive for Covid-19.
–IANS
aks/bg