ED detects Rs 60 crore financial irregularities in media entity owned by Trinamool MP

Kolkata: Marathon search operations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials at a media entity owned by Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Nadimul Haque, which started on Monday morning, were finally completed early on Tuesday and are said to have detected major financial irregularities.

Sources aware of the development said that financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 60 crore in the books of accounts of ‘Akhbar-e-Mashriq’, a multi-edition Urdu newspaper, have been detected in the books of accounts of the media entity.

ED officials, sources said, have noticed some doubtful transactions involving Hawala links. It is learnt that the central investigating agency started an investigation in the matter following specific complaints of the Trinamool’s party funds being channelled through the media entity.

It is learnt that besides conducting the marathon raid and search operations at Akhbar-e-Mashriq’s office in the Park Circus area in central Kolkata and examining the documents there, the ED officials also questioned Nadimul Haque in the matter for a prolonged period.

According to the ED, bank transaction documents and several digital documents were examined. The investigators claim that no proper evidence of the transaction of Rs 60 crore was found in them. When Nadimul Haque was asked about this, he could not give a proper answer either, sources added.

The ED claims that the transactions were suspicious and hence, it is being investigated whether the transaction took place through hawala or not.

It is learnt that ED officials have seized documents, both paper and digital, from that office. The ED officials will now thoroughly examine these documents to trace further financial irregularities besides the Rs 60 crore amount which had already been identified.

On Monday, besides the main office of ‘Akhbar-e-Mashriq’ at Park Circus in central Kolkata, simultaneous raids and search operations were conducted at six other locations in Delhi, Ranchi, and Kolkata that are linked to Haque.

The total of the seven locations where the ED raids are being conducted since Monday morning also included the residence of the Trinamool MP at Darga Road in south Kolkata. ED officials also reportedly reached the residence of Haque’s son-in-law.

Besides Kolkata, ‘Akhbar-e-Mashriq’ has editions from Delhi, Ranchi, Asansol, Siliguri, Bhopal, Lucknow, and Srinagar.

IANS