SRINAGAR PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Thursday termed as “shameful” the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons to the teenage daughter of jailed separatist Shabir Ahmad Shah in a 14-year-old money laundering case.
Mufti said she believed that vindictive politics was being played in Jammu and Kashmir for garnering votes across the country.
“They arrested Mohammad Yasin Malik, then they called Mirwaiz to Delhi (for questioning) and now Shabir Shah’s daughter has been summoned. It is regrettable and shameful for the country,” Mehbooba told reporters at Kulgam where she was campaigning for Lok Sabha elections.
The former chief minister is contesting from Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency, where polling is being held in three stages.
Mufti said the summon to Sama Shabir, Shah’s 19-year-old daughter who is pursuing studies at Manchester in the UK, was “bad”. “She must have been barely five-years-old when this case was registered,” she said.
Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani also condemned the ED summons.
“Shabir Ahmad Shah and Altaf Ahmad Shah have spent most of their life in Indian jails… They are in their custody to answer any question and issuing notices to their children is not only undemocratic, immoral but shameful as well,” he said in a statement here.
Sama was issued summons at her home in Srinagar. The first date for her to appear before the agency was on April 18 and the second on Wednesday.
Shah was arrested on July 25, 2017 in the 2005 case related to money laundering and alleged financing of terror groups.
The ED had registered a case in 2007 based on the investigation by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in the August 2005 case, wherein the police had arrested Mohammed Aslam Wani, an alleged hawala dealer, who had claimed that he passed on Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.
Asked about Income Tax Department raids on a relative of former minister Imran Ansari, Mufti said “What can I do in it, whether it (raids) was right or wrong?”
The Income Tax Department Thursday carried out searches at two premises of a kin of Ansari for alleged tax evasion, officials said.
Reacting to BJP chief Amit Shah’s claim that there was a bigger Modi wave in this election than 2014, the PDP president said that had there been a wave, the ruling party would not have resorted to using Balakot and Kashmir to garner votes across the country.
“If there were a wave, they would not resort to such tactics. They would not rake up Balakot airstrikes, they would not commit atrocities in kashmir, they would not talk about polarisation in the country. The would not resort to things that they are doing in desperation,” she said.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah also slammed the Enforcement Directorate for summoning Shahs 19-year-old daughter in the 14-year-old case.
In a tweet, Omar said that Sama was five years old when the case was registered and still ED felt the need to summon her. He said ED summoned Sama in PMLA case of 2005 when she was 5-year-old.
She was 5 years old when the case was registered & yet the Enforcement Directorate still felt the need to summon her. Talk about victimising families! ED summons daughter of Shabir Shah in PMLA case of 2005 when she was 5-year-old, Omar tweeted.
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