Representatives of the controversial outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and NGO Rehab India Foundation on Wednesday met Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials to seek more time for its office bearers to appear before the agency for questioning in connection with a money laundering probe against them.
Four officials, including legal representatives, of the two outfits met ED officials at an agency office here on Wednesday.
The ED is probing PFI and NGO Rehab India Foundation under criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as part of a case registered in 2018.
A recent ED report has claimed that violent protests in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of the country against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) had an alleged “financial link” with the PFI. This aspect is also under the scanner of the ED along with some purported dubious deposits in the bank accounts linked to the Rehab India Foundation (RIF).
The agency had issued summons to seven office-bearers of the two outfits on Tuesday in connection the alleged funding for the anti-CAA protests.
Those summoned by the agency include PFI and Rehab India Foundation (RIF) Chairman E Abubacker, PFI vice-chairman O M Abdul Salam, General Secretary M Mohammed Ali Jinnah and national secretaries Anis Ahmed and Abdul Wahid Sait.
Similar summonses were also sent to RIF general secretary Remiz Muhammed and secretary A Chandrankandy.
The agency may issue a fresh date for Abubacker’s appearance before it. The other office bearers are scheduled to appear before the investigating officer of the case next week, officials said.
Officials said the agency is also probing remittances and withdrawal of funds from nine bank accounts of RFI apart from a deposit of `20 lakh from Dubai in its accounts.
At least Rs 1.04 crore was deposited in several bank accounts linked to the PFI between December 4 last year and January 6 in various parts of the country, sources said, adding this was the time when Parliament cleared the passage of CAA.
A total amount of `120 crore, credited at varied times into the bank accounts linked to the PFI, RFI and few others, is under the scanner of the agency, sources said.
“The Popular Front of India has stated it multiple times that we fully comply with the law of the land and the allegation of `120 crore transferred from the Popular Front’s accounts just before the CAA protests is totally baseless and the people who are levelling these allegations should prove these claims,” the organisation had said in a statement issued on Monday.
The ED took cognizance of a National Investigation Agency (NIA) FIR and charge sheet against the PFI to file the PMLA case against the outfit in 2018.
The ED is probing the PFI’s alleged role with respect to suspected terror-funding and possible creation of assets by using suspected “proceeds of crime.”
The PFI was formed in November, 2006 in Kerala and is suspected to have subsequently shifted its headquarters to Shaheen Bagh in the national capital.