Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate Monday in connection with alleged irregularities in appointments to the Delhi Waqf Board and leasing of its properties believed to be worth Rs 100 crore.
The AAP leader's arrest follows dramatic scenes from the federal agency's raid on his Delhi residence this morning; in a video statement on X he accused the ED of acting insensitively, stating the raids had upset his mother-in-law, a cancer patient operated on last week.
"The ED has come to arrest me on the pretext of a search. My mother-in-law is a cancer patient... she was operated on four days ago. She is at my home. I informed the ED of this..."
ED Raids Khan's Home
Visuals from this morning showed an elderly woman lying on a bed as Mr Khan speaks to a man - possibly an ED officer - and asks for four weeks' time. To this the man responds, "Why do you believe we are here to arrest you..." and Mr Khan shoots back, "Why else are you here?"
A woman, who might be Mr Khan's wife, is heard saying, "What do you need to search at a three-room house. Why do you have to turn my home upside down every time?"
READ | ED Team At AAP MLA's Home, He Says It Plans To Arrest Him
"She has cancer and she has been operated upon. I will take you to court if anything happens to my mother. She can't even stand," the woman, possibly Mr Khan's wife, adds.
Mr Khan, meanwhile, has also rubbished the allegations and accused the ED of "harassing me for two years... slapping false cases (and) creating problems". "They are harassing our party (the AAP) ... they want to break our party... we will not get scared," the MLA from Delhi's Okhla said.
AAP Reacts, Slams ED
Mr Khan's posted a message of support on X, declaring "revolutionaries will not bow down to the tyranny of a dictator" and accusing the agency of acting over a "fake case".
Amanatullah Khan becomes the fourth high-profile AAP leader to be arrested by a central agency since ex Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in February last year; the others include Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The latter three were arrested - Mr Sisodia and Mr Kejriwal by the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation, for apparent good measure - in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.
READ | AAP MP Sanjay Singh Gets Bail After 6 Months In Jail In Liquor Policy Case
Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia have received bail; in Mr Sisodia's case bail was granted last month, after nearly 18 months in prison, with the Supreme Court calling his prolonged incarceration without a trial (or any hope of one in the near future) a "travesty of justice".
READ | "Travesty Of Justice": Sisodia Gets Bail, Supreme Court Slams Delay
Mr Kejriwal remains in jail, having secured bail in the ED case but then left to fight a second bail battle following a last-minute arrest by the CBI.
Both Mr Singh and Mr Sisodia have slammed the ED, pointing out the agency has been "repeatedly reprimanded by the Supreme Court... that they should not conduct an investigation with malice".
"Despite this, today the ED reached the residence of Amanatullah Khan early morning to conduct a raid... at a time when his mother-in-law has cancer and has undergone an operation," Mr Singh thundered, also criticising the agency for acting precipitously in a six-year case.
The charges against Amanatullah Khan date back to 2016, when the CBI filed its case. Mr Singh declared the central agency, after a long investigation, did not arrest the AAP leader. "He did not commit any crime so CBI did not arrest him... but even after that ED does not close its case."
In April Mr Khan had been granted bail by Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court; that was in connection with alleged non-attendance of the ED's summons in the Waqf Board money laundering case.
"This is the only work left for the ED..." Mr Sisodia declared, repeating what many have claimed - that the ruling BJP uses federal agencies to harass rivals, particularly before an election.
"... to muffle every voice against the BJP and jail the ones who do not break," Mr Sisodia said, his statement echoed by party colleague and Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, who linked the ED's action against Mr Khan to an Assembly election due in the city early next year.
With input from agencies
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