New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday said it has filed a chargesheet against former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and some others in connection with its money laundering probe linked to alleged irregularities in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA).
The prosecution complaint was filed on June 04 before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Srinagar, it said in a statement.
The ED has also arraigned Ahsan Ahmad Mirza and Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, both former treasurers of JKCA, and some others as accused in the chargesheet.
The court has summoned the accused to appear before it on August 27, it said.
Mirza was arrested by the ED in September, 2019, and a chargesheet was filed against him in November that year. The trial is underway.
Abdullah has been questioned multiple times by the agency in this case.
The federal probe agency has attached assets belonging to Abdullah and others worth Rs 21.55 crore under three separate orders issued by it in the past.
“The case relates to the siphoning off the funds of Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association by way of transfer to various personal bank accounts of unrelated parties, including those of office-bearers of JKCA and by way of unexplained cash withdrawals from JKCA bank accounts,” the ED said.
The agency’s case is based on a 2018 chargesheet filed by the CBI against the same accused.
The CBI chargesheet, that also names former accountants Bashir Ahmad Misgar and Gulzar Ahmad Beigh, alleged the “misappropriation of JKCA funds amounting to Rs 43.69 crore” from grants given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to promote the sport in the erstwhile state between 2002 and 2011.
The ED had earlier said its probe found that JKCA received Rs 94.06 crore from BCCI in three bank accounts during the financial years 2005-2006 to 2011-2012 (up to December 2011).
It had alleged that several other bank accounts were opened under JKCA into which the funds were transferred.
The new bank accounts as well as the previously existing ones were later used for laundering JKCA funds, it said.
