J&K Election Buzz In Air, ED On The Ground: After Muftis, Farooq Abdullah Under Scanner

The spectre of the Enforcement Directorate appears to have raised its head in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the impending state assembly elections in the Union Territories.

On Tuesday (July 26), the central agency, which has been accused of being a tool of political victimisation by the opposition, filed a supplementary complaint and a chargesheet against former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah for alleged money laundering in Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA). National Conference (NC) spokesperson Sarah Hayat Shah has claimed the ED’s latest move, was aimed at silencing the party ahead of elections and that it smacks of political vendetta.

“Whenever there’s an election talk doing the rounds in J&K, the agencies start running after our leadership. These pressure tactics shall not deter us,” she said.

“Dr. Farooq Abdullah shall always stick to the truth, no matter how stories are fabricated, truth manipulated and dissent suppressed however he will cooperate with the agencies and vindicate himself,” the party said in a statement issued soon after the ED filed the chargesheet in the money laundering case.

Principal District and Sessions Judge, Srinagar, had issued the summons against Abdullah, following a complaint filed by the ED against him and others in the JKCA money laundering case. On May 31 this year, ED officials questioned Abdullah (84), a sitting MP, for over three hours in Srinagar. The ED had initiated the money laundering probe against the JKCA office-bearers on the basis of a case registered at the Ram Munshi Bagh police station in Srinagar.

The JKCA scam first surfaced in 2012 when the police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against a former treasurer of the JKCA Ahsan Mirza and the former general secretary Saleem Khan for criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. They were accused of diverting Rs. 43.69 crore, received from BCCI as an annual subsidy, to three “bogus” personal accounts opened in the name of the JKCA by some officials, before the money was siphoned off. Abdullah was the Association’s president at the time.

In September 2015, the J&K High Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the case, while also indicting Jammu and Kashmir police for failing to carry out an investigation. In 2018, the CBI filed a chargesheet before the chief judicial magistrate, Srinagar, against four accused persons including Abdullah.

Last year in June, the BCCI constituted a three-member committee, which included two BJP leaders and one former cricketer, to look into JKCA’s affairs. The latest action by the ED has led the region’s political parties to once again accuse the central agency of targeting its leaders at the ruling party’s behest.

The fresh development comes at a time when the ruling BJP is contemplating holding assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the first major poll since the abrogation of Article 370 and the trifurcation of the former state into Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
 
Abdullah has already hinted on July 5 this year, that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Deceleration would contest elections jointly, a move that could affect the BJP’s prospects in the upcoming polls.

“Suppressing the voice of the people will certainly result in ignominious failure of the suppressor. Attacking top JKNC (Jammu & Kashmir National Conference) leadership means BJP has once again tested positive for its political insecurity syndrome,”  NC spokesperson Shah said.

In October 2021, after the ED had summoned the NC president, the party had expressed anger over the summons and Abdullah’s subsequent grilling for six hours. The party had accused the government of trying to curtail Abdullah’s efforts to weave unity among J&K’s mainstream political parties.

“The only way to get a clean chit these days is to surrender one's ideology and join the BJP. We’ve seen this story play out from Assam to Karnataka, from West Bengal to Andhra Pradesh but Dr Abdullah is not going to surrender to the BJP, come what may,” a party spokesperson had maintained.
 
 Abdullah is not the only politician from the Valley in the ED’s crosshairs.

On December 23, 2020, the ED conducted searches in Srinagar and Delhi, at premises linked to Anjum Fazili, a close aide of People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti, in connection with another money laundering case. On March 25, 2021,  Mufti, a former Chief Minister, was questioned by the agency’s officials for about four hours in the same case, which is related to diversion of government funds.

Mufti, who heads the PDP, called the ED’s action a witch-hunt.

On July 6, 2021, the Enforcement Directorate also served a notice to Mufti's mother, Gulshan Nazir in connection with the same case. Like Abdullah and the NC, Mehbooba has also described the ED probe as a move to silence dissent. “Dissent has been criminalised in this country. Either you are ruled by ED, NIA (National Investigation Agency), or CBI. Whosoever raises voice here, they are using ED against (them),” she says.