After the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) claimed that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested party MLA Amanatullah Khan in connection with a money laundering case associated with the Delhi Waqf Board, the legislator clarified that he had been summoned for ‘questioning’ by the probe agency instead.
“I came for questioning at 11 AM. Since then questioning was going on. Now I am free so going home,” Khan told news agency PTI after leaving the ED office at midnight.
On Thursday night, several AAP leaders, including party MP Sanjay Singh and ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, visited Khan’s residence in Okhla to show support and solidarity with his family members.
While speaking to reporters outside Khan’s house, Atishi said that they had received news about his arrest.
“We are getting the news that AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan ji has been arrested,” she said.
Asserting that the case against Khan was ‘fake’, Atishi remarked, “This is an attack on AAP before Lok Sabha polls. Why was Kejriwal arrested before the polls? Why has Amanatullah Khan been arrested after a non-bailable warrant was quashed? This is a conspiracy to break the AAP by scaring its MLAs. But we won’t be scared.”
Khan had appeared before the federal agency earlier in the day for questioning in the money laundering case. This came after the Supreme Court refuse to entertain his anticipatory bail plea on Monday.
A top court bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta asked Khan to appear before the anti-corruption agency on April 18 at 11 am.
Before entering the ED office, Khan — speaking to reporters — claimed that he followed the rules when he was the Waqf Board’s chairman, adding that he did everything after taking legal opinions and as per the new Act (for the board) that came into play in 2013.
The money laundering case against Khan stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR and three Delhi Police complaints.
According to the central probe agency, Khan had acquired “huge proceeds of crime” in cash through illegal recruitment of staff in the Delhi Waqf Board and invested those to purchase immovable assets in the name of his associates.