Just days after grilling Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party leader Rahul Gandhi, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday raided several locations in relation to the National Herald money laundering case, including the offices of the party-owned newspaper.
At least 12 locations were raided by the ED on Tuesday, which included the head office of the Congress party-owned National Herald newspaper in New Delhi as part of an ongoing money laundering probe, officials said, as per PTI reports.
The officials confirmed that the searches are being carried out under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to "gather additional evidence with regard to the trail of funds".
Officers of the federal agency also searched the 'Herald House' office located at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, ITO in central Delhi. This comes after both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were questioned in multiple sessions while probing the money laundering case.
The address is registered in the name of Associated Journals Ltd which publishes the newspaper. The ED has recently undertaken the high-profile questioning of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi in this case apart from a few other Congress politicians.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders have alleged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government is using central agencies to pressure their senior party leaders, saying that a “fake case” has been filed to ruin the reputation of the Gandhi family.
As per reports, Sonia Gandhi was asked over 100 questions by the ED in a span of 12 hours, which were spread out over three days. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi was asked over 150 questions in 5 sessions of ED questioning, which were over 21 hours long.
The Gandhis, and several other Congress leaders, were under the lens of the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald newspaper money laundering case, when Associated Journals Limited (AJL) – the company that runs the newspaper – was taken over by a company called the Young Indian.
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(With PTI inputs)
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