Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti on Friday shared a letter written by her to the Directorate of Enforcement, alleging that the central agency was being weaponised by the Bharatiya Janata Party to hound political opponents.
Mufti said several people from Kashmir have been summoned by the investigating agency, possibly in connection with an Enforcement Case Information Report. “The only common thread connecting these persons appears to be that they are all acquainted with me, my family or my politics in one way or another,” the letter said. “The questioning of these persons is also focused on myself, my personal, political and financial affairs; my late father’s grave and memorial, my sister’s finances, home construction, my brother’s finances and personal affairs etc.”
She mentioned Peoples Democratic Party Youth President Waheed Parra’s arrest by the National Investigation Agency last month in an alleged terror case related to suspended Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh. The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said Parra was arrested in what appears to be a “non-existent case” around the time of District Development Council elections in the Union Territory. “He has now been returned successful by the people of Kashmir in the DDC elections,” she wrote, referring to him winning the Pulwama-1 seat. “On the eve of the results, several of my relatives and party leaders were kept in unlawful detention by the J&K administration.”
The letter, which was also marked to the secretaries of the Government of India’s Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the use of the Enforcement Directorate against political adversaries is not “an unknown device” for the ruling saffron party at the Centre.
“I am ready and willing to face any questioning by any agency,” Mufti wrote. “But I will insist upon the legitimacy of the process.”
Mufti said the mobile phones and personal digital devices of those summoned for questioning have also been seized by or at the behest of the ED. “This is further to put you on notice that if you intend to question me or examine my electronic or digital devices, or those of the members of my family, you shall do it in the presence of myself or my representative and under the supervision of an impartial/judicial authority. If there is any breach of what I consider to be the norms of law, good conduct and constitutionalism, I shall not hesitate to take the matter up legally and politically.”
The PDP president notified the ED about the constitutional right to privacy, the right to democratic politics and the right to due process.
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