ED attaches Azam Khan’s Jauhar University in money laundering case
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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has attached the land and buildings of Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, in a money laundering case linked to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan.
The provisional attachment order, issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, covers 59 buildings on the university campus at Jauhar Nagar in Singhankhera village. The agency said the property was built at a cost of Rs 499 crore but is now valued at about Rs 1,170 crore, while the estimated proceeds of crime in the case stand at Rs 426.46 crore.
According to the ED, the university is run by the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, founded and controlled by Khan, who is also its honorary chancellor. The agency alleged that public funds meant for government works were diverted for the construction and operation of the private institution, and that government projects were carried out on its campus.
The ED said its case is based on 54 police FIRs against Khan and the trust. It alleged that agricultural land belonging to farmers was forcibly acquired for the university, while 45 plots of enemy property spread over about 34 acres were illegally occupied even after the lease to the trust had been cancelled.
The agency said possession of the enemy-property land has since been restored to the custodian under the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Rampur district administration.
The ED further alleged that during 2016, houses of several families in Rampur, many of them tenants of Waqf property, were demolished and the occupants assaulted, threatened and robbed. It claimed that debris from the demolished houses was taken to the university and municipal cleaning machinery was diverted there.
The agency also alleged that works worth Rs 6.60 crore were carried out at the university using local area development funds of legislators, while the trust received donations of Rs 6.24 crore from two Meerut-based educational institutions through political influence.
According to the ED, a public pandal built with Rs 12 crore in state funds was later converted into private university property during 2015-16, when Khan held cabinet portfolios connected to the departments that created the infrastructure.
The agency said the managing director of a firm that received Public Works Department contracts worth Rs 186 crore admitted that 30 to 40 per cent of the contract value was used to purchase construction material for the university. Partners of another firm allegedly said they donated Rs 40 lakh to the trust under Khan’s influence.
The ED had conducted searches in the case in August and questioned Khan, who is currently lodged in Rampur jail in connection with multiple criminal cases.