ED raids against AAP minister end after 23 hours; Delhi minister alleges harassment
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New Delhi: Raaj Kumar Anand, the Delhi Cabinet Minister, said that there was a "conspiracy to harass" Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) officials during the roughly 23-hour Enforcement Directorate raids, which came to an end early on Friday.
The searches, undertaken as part of a money laundering investigation against the minister and some others linked to him, were launched around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday and came to a close around 5 a.m. on Friday.
The searches went on for about 23 hours and this is part of the conspiracy to harass AAP leaders. We were harassed since morning, the minister told reporters after ED officials left his residence in the Civil Lines area of the national capital.
The probe against Anand was undertaken as per provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMlA), the sources had said.
The investigation stems from a charge sheet filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on charges of false declarations in imports for customs evasion of more than Rs 7 crore apart from international hawala transactions, the sources said.
A local court recently took cognisance of the DRI prosecution complaint after which the ED filed a PMLA case against Anand and some others, they said.
Anand, 57, is the minister for social welfare and SC/ST welfare among others in the Arvind Kejriwal-led government. He is an MLA from Patel Nagar.
With PTI inputs