Khurshid saga gets murkier

UP EOW gets into act

The episode surrounding union law minister Salman Khurshid turned murkier today with the Uttar Pradesh probe agencies acting into the alleged misappropriation of funds by his family-run Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust.

With allegations and counter allegations being traded amongst main actors in the saga viz. activist Arvind Kejriwal and the Khurshid family, the Uttar Pradesh Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of UP Police has started to collect details in the matter.

The state government headed by Akhilesh Yadav had also come under fire from Kejriwal, who alleged the powerful minister would go scot free due the lack of proper investigation.

Apparently rattled by this allegation and to preempt any further controversy, the government has directed the EOW to proceed in its investigations.

A number of teams had been formed by the EOW to probe the matter, which has been hogging the national media limelight in the past several days forcing the union law minister to hold a press conference in New Delhi with ‘documentary evidence’.

Kejriwal and a leading news channel had separately alleged a scam to the tune of over Rs 71 lakh in camps held by the Trust to distribute aids the disabled in UP. The allegation is the Trust submitted forged documents to claim the grant-in-aid by the Centre, while the names of beneficiaries were also cooked up.

To buttress their respective points, both Kejriwal and Khurshid have produced beneficiaries/purported beneficiaries before the media.

Meanwhile, the EOW is investigating the matter in Kanpur and Meerut divisions spanning several districts, where these camps were claimed to have be held in the past.

According to EOW director general Subrat Tripathi, the agency was collecting documents at various levels, including state, divisional and headquarters and the probe was proceeding smoothly.

Yadav preferred to stay mum over the whole issue, which is mutating each passing day with fresh angles branching out. Replying to media queries, the CM observed it would not be appropriate to comment on the issue since the probe was on, which he said had started during the previous Mayawati regime.