In a dawn swoop, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax Department (ITD) raided the Kolhapur home and some other locations linked to senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Hasan Mushrif for alleged corruption and money-laundering cases.
The raids came after Bharatiya Janata Party former MP Kirit Somaiya made allegations of irregularities of over Rs 158 crore in a sugar mill, besides amassing huge properties, against the former Maha Vikas Aghadi government minister.
Teams of around two dozen ED-ITD sleuths swarmed at Mushrif’s home in Kagal town of Kolhapur around 6 a.m., and other places connected with the NCP leader, amid tight security and after the operation confiscated certain documents and other evidence.
Mushrif has vehemently denied all the accusations hurled by Somaiya since the past few weeks though the ED had raided some persons reportedly close to the NCP leader.
After Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, Mushrif is the third senior NCP, besides Shiv Sena (UT)’s MP Sanjay Raut, to be targeted by various probe agencies in the past couple of years.
A large number of the NCP activists gathered outside Mushrif’s home and staged noisy protests, raising slogans against the BJP or the probe agencies, and gave calls for ‘Kolhapur shutdown’ Wednesday while Somaiya is expected to visit the temple town later in the day.
(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)
