The Enforcement Directorate on March 4 alleged that the then Dr. Zakir Husain Memorial Trust’s project director, Louise Khurshid, the wife of senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, and two others allegedly laundered ₹71.50 lakh.
The Lucknow Zonal office of ED has provisionally attached 15 immovable properties worth ₹29.51 lakh, in the form of agricultural land, in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh and ₹16.41 lakh lying in the four bank accounts linked to the Trust.
The agency’s money-laundering probe is based on 17 first information reports (FIRs) registered by the Uttar Pradesh police’s Economic Offences Wing against Pratyush Shukla, a representative of Dr. Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, and others. The police have filed chargesheets in all the 17 cases against Athar Farooqui alias Mohammed Athar, as the then secretary of the Trust; and the then project director, Ms. Khurshid, it said.
According to the ED, the grant-in-aid of ₹71.50 lakh received by the Trust was not used for holding camps as sanctioned by the Central government. The funds were instead allegedly laundered by Mr. Shukla, Mr. Athar and Ms. Khurshid, “for the interest of the Trust and their personal gain” .
The Trust had received the funds purportedly for distribution of hearing aids and wheelchairs among the differently-abled in 17 districts of Uttar Pradesh.
