ED attaches Rs 2.6 crore worth of assets in JK Cricket Association funds fraud PMLA case

The ED has attached assets worth Rs 2.6 crore in a money laundering case related to the alleged embezzlement of funds of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA), the central agency said on Saturday.

A provisional order for attachment of assets has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against former treasurer of JKCA Ahsan Ahmad Mirza and its finance committee member Mir Mansoor Gazanffer, it said.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah has been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in the case.

Abdullah has been slapped with the Public Safety Act (PSA) and is under detention since August 5 last year when the Union government abrogated Article 370 provisions that accorded special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into Union territories of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh.

"The attached assets consist of three FDRs (fixed deposit receipts) totalling Rs 1.29 crore with J&K Bank branch in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi in the name of Mirza Sons, a partnership firm of Mirza and his father.

"11 Kanals of land with structure and commercial shopping complex at Pandrethan, Srinagar to the tune of Rs 1.31 crore has also been attached," the ED said in a statement.

The ED case is based on a CBI FIR as part of which the latter probe agency booked former office-bearers of JKCA, including general secretary Mohd Saleem Khan and Mirza.

The CBI later filed a charge sheet against Farooq Abdullah, Khan, Mirza, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer Ali, Bashir Ahmad Misgar and Gulzar Ahmad Beigh (former accountant of JKCA) for "misappropriation of JKCA funds amounting to Rs 43.69 crore" from grants given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to the association for promoting the sport in the state between 2002-11.

The ED said its probe found that during financial years 20052006 to 20112012 (up to December 2011) JKCA received Rs 94.06 crore from BCCI in three different bank accounts.

"However, several other bank accounts were opened in the name of JKCA into which these funds were transferred."
"Out of the laundered amounts, Rs 1.31 crore was received by Gazanffer who was a member of the finance committee of JKCA between 2006 to 2009."
It claimed that in 2004 the then "duly elected Treasurer Mukhtar Kanth resigned and immediately Farooq Abdullah appointed Mirza as Treasurer of JKCA without holding elections as mandated under the JKCA Rules, 1957."