ED questions Hasan Ali over black money

IANS/Mumbai

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday raided the home of a stud farm owner accused of stashing over $8bn in Swiss banks, officials said.

ED teams raided Hasan Ali Khan’s Pune home and detained him for questioning. He is likely to be brought to Mumbai for further questioning, an official said.

The ED and other agencies investigating the money laundering racket are also likely to open some bank lockers in his presence in Mumbai, the official said.

However, the official declined to reveal the outcome of the raids or of Khan’s preliminary questioning.

This is the second time that Khan has been raided, the previous one being in January 2007.

Among other things, Khan is suspected to have stashed away around $8bn in Swiss bank accounts, transferring cash and assets out of the country through dubious means and evading taxes on income with a suspected liability of over Rs400bn.

Recently, the ED issued summons to him to appear before it on March 10 while he was quizzed by the Income Tax Department last month in connection with notices served to him in December 2008.

The ED has also issued look-out notices against Khan to ensure he does not flee the country.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court lambasted the Congress administration for not having the "willpower” to act against black money hoarders, asking why Khan and others were not subjected to questioning in custody.

"What the hell is going on in this country?” the Supreme Court bench asked, using unusually strong language.

Meanwhile, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalitha has served legal notices to three media organisations, demanding an unconditional apology for their "malicious” reports suggesting that a huge cache of money in possession of Khan belonged to her.

The organisations areteh  Mumbai-based MiD-Day newspaper, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-backed Tamil newspaper Murasoli and news channel Kalaignar TV.

MiD-Day on March 4 published a report alleging that the huge cache of money in possession of Khan belonged to a "woman politician who was also the chief minister of a southern state.”

"This is mischievous, scurrilous, malicious and insinuating journalism at its very worst. In fact, it is my client who had issued statements and pressed upon to initiate action against persons who have stashed black money in foreign banks,” the legal notice served by Jayalalitha’s lawyer P H Manoj Pandian to MiD-Day says.

Agreeing that Tamil Nadu had one more woman chief minister (the late Janaki Ramachandran, who also belonged to the AIADMK) and the MiD-Day report was silent on the name, Pandian said: "Let MiD-Day say so. However, it is that newspaper’s report which formed the basis of a report published by Murasoli and the news broadcast by Kalaignar TV.”

Murasoli is the official newspaper of the ruling DMK and Kalaignar TV is majority owned by the wife and daughter of DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.