AAP accuses ED sleuths of ransacking minister Anand's residence, harassing his family during raid

After the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the residence of Delhi minister Raaj Kumar Anand, AAP leaders on Friday alleged that the BJP was misusing central probe agencies to ”scare and silence” the opposition.

Addressing a press conference, Delhi minister Atishi alleged that ED sleuths ransacked Anand’s residence and harassed his family members during the raid, but found nothing against him.

At the press conference, Anand said the raid was a ”political conspiracy” and that ”we are being harassed for following truth and politics of work. We are not scared of ED or CBI and will continue to follow our leader Arvind Kejriwal.” The search, undertaken as part of a money laundering investigation against Anand and some others linked to him, was launched around 7:30 am on Thursday and ended around 5 am on Friday.

Official sources have said the ED investigation stems from a charge sheet filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on charges of false declarations in imports for customs evasion of more than Rs 7 crore apart from international hawala transactions.

Atishi said the ED raid was conducted in connection with a 19-year-old case which had been pending at the Customs Tribunal for many years.

”The two agencies of the BJP are busy harassing the AAP. The raid at Anand’s residence continued for 20 hours, his residence was ransacked and his family members were harassed. Raids were also conducted at places of his relatives and business associates,” she said.

”I want to tell BJP that we are not scared of ED and CBI and prepared to go to jail. They cannot silence us or stop us for working (for people). We will continue to fight against BJP’s corruption,” she asserted.

Anand said that there was a search at his business establishment by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in 2005 and he was issued a show-cause notice.

He said he challenged the notice in a court.

In a separate press conference, AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar alleged that the BJP was now targeting Anand after Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain and Sanjay Singh.

The BJP is doing this because it has no answer to Arvind Kejriwal who is ”very popular” across the country, she said.

”The BJP has failed to provide free health, education, electricity and water to people and people in other states want the Delhi model of development which is popular because it uplifts people,” she said.

”Even after the 22-hour-long raid at Anand’s residence, not even 25 paise were found,” she said.