Covid donations abuser journalist Rana Ayyub prevented from flying to London and Italy

Rana Ayyub stopped at Mumbai International Airport in the wake of a Lookout Circular issued against her

March 29, 2022

ED asks Rana Ayyub to join the probe on April 1

Journalist Rana Ayyub, caught diverting donations collected for Covid relief works, was on Tuesday stopped by Immigration authorities at the Mumbai international airport from flying abroad in the wake of a ‘lookout circular‘ issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against her, officials said. ED has already asked her to join the interrogation and record statements in a money laundering case against her.

The controversial scribe, who was later exposed for fake stories and caught for Covid relief donation collection and misuse, reached the Mumbai international airport to board a flight to London but was stopped by immigration authorities. Soon after, an ED team questioned her at the airport and asked her to join the investigation, they said. She is understood to have been asked to depose before the agency at its office here on April 1.

Officials said the ED had first issued summons to her after the agency early this year provisionally attached over Rs.1.77 crore in bank deposits in connection with the case against her linked to irregularities in charitable funds raised by her from public donors for Covid-19 relief work during 2020-2021[1]

ED sleuths said she skipped the notice and the agency did not want her to leave the country as it could lead to a delay in the probe and the subsequent filing of a charge sheet in court. Ayyub posted about the incident on her Twitter handle.

“I was stopped today at the Indian immigration while I was about to board my flight to London to deliver my speech on the intimidation of journalists with @ICFJ. I was to travel to Italy right after to deliver the keynote address at the @journalismfest on Indian democracy,” she posted.

Posting a subsequent Tweet she said these events “have been planned and publicized all over my social media for weeks”. “Yet, curiously the Enforcement directorate summons arrived in my mail much after I was stopped at the immigration. What do you fear?” Ayyub said.

The money laundering case against her stems from a September 2021 First Information Report (FIR) of Ghaziabad Police (Uttar Pradesh) related to alleged irregularities in donor funds of over Rs.2.69 crore raised by her through an online crowdfunding platform called ‘Ketto’. The police lodged the case on a complaint made by Vikas Sankrityayan, founder of an NGO called “Hindu IT Cell” and a resident of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad.

Rana Ayyub came to the limelight by posting anti-BJP and anti-Modi stories (when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister) in Tehelka Magazine, which was closed down after its controversial Editor Tarun Tejpal was arrested for sexual abuse against a lady journalist in 2013. None of the reports of Rana Ayyub on Gujarat riots and police encounters targeting the then Chief Minister stood in the law and was found to be cake and plants by the then Congress regime ruling in India. Rana was minting money from certain Muslim Groups for her anti-stories on Modi and was now caught for Covid relief donation collection and misuse. Once, the Supreme Court observed that her book on Gujarat encounters was just fake and fiction.

Now Rana Ayyub is working as Contributing Editor for Washington Post and a majority of her articles are found to be fake and anti-BJP, the ruling party in India.

Reference:

[1] ED attaches Rs.1.77 crore funds of journalist Rana Ayyub for siphoning Corona relief works through crowdfunding – Feb 10, 2022, PGurus.com

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