Hathras case: Rs 100 crore sent to fund violence in UP, hints ED

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said that there were evidences of approximately Rs 100 crore being routed to Uttar Pradesh to instigate caste and communal conflict in the wake of alleged gang-rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Hathras.

As per the highly-placed sources, the ED has allegedly found that of Rs 100 crore to have come in accounts allegedly related to Popular Front of India (PFI). Of this, Rs 50 crore came from Mauritius. Now the directorate is further probing the actual sources of these funds and the real purpose behind them.

The ED has claimed that the entire funding was more than Rs 100 crore. The police and the cyber cell team investigating the case have found important clues. The ED can register a case in this connection and conduct raids besides interrogating the accused already arrested.

Meanwhile, the Delhi-based Kerala journalist and three other persons allegedly linked to PFI were booked for sedition on Wednesday. The four were arrested in Mathura on Monday while on their way to Hathras from Delhi and have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

The FIR registered against them said, “Four persons who were apprehended from Mathura on October 5 and had links with PFI were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of a larger conspiracy.”

Police had said the four were taken into custody at Mathura’s Math toll plaza where the police were checking vehicles after receiving a tip-off that some suspicious people were on their way to Hathras from Delhi.

The four were in a car and identified themselves as Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich, and Alam of Rampur, the police said, adding their mobile phones, laptop, and some literature, which could have an impact on peace and order, were seized.

During interrogation, it came to light that they had links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associate organisation Campus Front of India (CFI), the police said, adding further their interrogation was underway.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), however, claimed that Siddique was their member and the secretary of the journalists’ union. The members are now mulling to move the Supreme Court against UP Police action.

While the agency is scanning several accounts in which the money was received, it is also planning to register a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the administrators of the website.

The Yogi Adityanath-led UP government has alleged a politically motivated campaign to malign its image. The Chief Minister (CM) had said on Monday that “a host of organisations” were using foreign funding and conspiring against the government by invoking caste conflicts.

It has also requested the Supreme Court to order a court-monitored CBI inquiry in the matter.

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