A supplementary persecution complaint (equivalent to a charge sheet) has been filed against the former Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, and others by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with its money laundering investigation into the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) case.
A special court in Srinagar took cognizance of the charge sheet on Tuesday after it had been presented on June 4. The defendants have received court summons, and they must show up on August 27. The chargesheet was preceded by three provisional attachment orders dated 28.02.2020, 18.12.2020, and 25.02.2022, which attached Dr Farooq Abdullah, M/s Mirza Sons, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, and Ahsan Ahmad Mirza’s moveable and immovable assets totalling Rs. 21.55 crore.
The case involves the misappropriation of funds from the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association through transfers to several personal bank accounts of unrelated individuals, including those of JKCA office holders, and by mysterious cash withdrawals from JKCA bank accounts. It is alleged that money to the tune of Rs 50 crore was misappropriated from the JKCA coffers between 2002 and 2011.
Although JKCA already had a bank account, the agency stated that six more bank accounts were formed in order to allegedly park and syphon off funds from that account. ED alleges that Farooq Abdullah abused his power as president of the organisation by making appointments in the sports body to launder funds.
The ED launched the money laundering investigation in response to a chargesheet presented by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the association’s officers in 2018. The CBI filed an FIR in this respect in 2015.
Farooq Abdullah had previously been questioned several times in the matter, the most recent occasion being in May of this year. The ED has attached properties worth Rs 14.32 crore belonging to Mirza, Gazanffer, and Abdullah in the case by 2020. The agency had temporarily attached assets worth Rs 7.25 crore belonging to another accused in the case in March of this year.