After seven days of custodial interrogation of the office bearers of the Popular Front of India (PFI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday informed the court that the “investigation into the accused persons has revealed that they have played an active role in bogus cash donations on behalf of PFI and in claiming and projecting PFI’s unaccounted cash raised through unknown and suspicious sources as untainted and legitimate.”
ED also stated that the PMLA investigation has revealed that as a part of a criminal conspiracy hatched by PFI office bearers over the past many years, suspicious funds from within the country and abroad have been raised by PFI and related entities and have been clandestinely remitted to India in a concealed manner and deposited in their bank accounts over the years.
These funds have been raised as a part of the scheduled offence of criminal conspiracy. The funds so raised/collected by PFI are thus nothing but proceeds of crime which they have layered, placed and integrated through their numerous bank accounts as well as those of their members/sympathizers. Thus PFI and its related entities have been involved in the continuous offence of money laundering over the years, the ED said.
The Enforcement Directorate through Advocate Naveen Kumar Matta, while seeking judicial custody of the accused stated that the investigation in the case is still continuing and requires the gathering of additional evidence and examination and confrontation of voluminous data extracted from digital devices which is still under progress.
Hence, the judicial custody of the accused i.e. Perwez Ahmed, Md. Iliyas and Abdul Muqeet during the period of investigation are warranted to ensure that they do not influence the witnesses and do not tamper with or destroy the material evidence related to the case. After taking note of the submissions of ED, the Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Shailender Malik decided to send all three accused to Judicial Custody for 14 days after ED didn’t seek further custodial remand of them.