Kumar Bahukhandi
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday September 2 , arrested AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan as part of a money laundering investigation against him and some others linked to him, official sources said.He was taken into custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the agency conducted a search at his residence in Okhla area of the national capital that was launched just after 6 am.
They said some questions were put to Khan during the searches but he remained “evasive” and hence was arrested.
He was then taken away from his home to the ED office in an official vehicle. The MLA may be produced before a court on Monday where the federal agency will seek for his custody to put him under sustained interrogation.
Reacting to the arrest, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the more the BJP tries to suppress us, the more vocal we will be.
A security team of the CRPF and Delhi Police was present inside and outside Khan’s house during the action. A purported video showed Khan sitting on a bed near his mother-in-law, who he said, had recently undergone a surgery.
The money laundering case against the 50-year-old legislator stems from two FIRs, one by the CBI in the Wakf Board related alleged irregularities and another by the Delhi ACB related to an case of alleged possession of disproportionate assets.
Sources claimed Khan evaded at least 10 ED summons since he was last questioned by the agency in this case in April. He kept deferring the summons on one pretext or the another like a pending law exam or the medical condition of his mother-in-law, the sources said.
An unconfirmed video showed Khan telling an ED officer standing outside his locked gate that he knows they want to arrest him.
“You have come to arrest me one thousand per cent, I have sought four weeks time due to my mother-in-law’s operation…I do not have money even for expenses,” he is heard as saying in the said video in which a woman is also seen questioning the ED official’s motive.
The legislator and his party broke the news first with Khan posting at 6:29 AM on his X handle that an ED team has reached his house in Okhla area to arrest him.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh too posted a video.
On X, AAP leader Manish Sisodia said the only work left for the ED is to “suppress every voice raised against the BJP and break it”.
Those who do not break, are arrested and put in jail, he alleged.
Khan joins a number of other party leaders who were arrested by the federal agency in different money laundering cases, including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former deputy CM Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and former minister Satyendar Jain.
Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are now out of jail on bail.
The ED, which had conducted raids on his premises earlier too, has claimed Khan acquired “huge proceeds of crime” in cash through illegal recruitment of staff in the Delhi Wakf Board and invested those to purchase immovable assets in the name of his associates.
The agency had alleged in a statement that “illegal recruitment” of staff took place in the Waqf Board and “illegal personal gains” were made by unfairly leasing the Waqf Board properties during Khan’s chairmanship (2018-2022).
The agency filed a charge sheet in this case in January and named four people that included three alleged associates of Khan– Zeeshan Haider, Daud Nasir and Jawed Imam Siddiqui.
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