Atishi has brought serious allegations against ED amid the raids on AAP leaders
The Enforcement Directorate's (ED) case against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is built on statements forced out of accused-turned-approvers, Delhi minister Atishi alleged today. Levelling serious allegations against the central agency, the AAP legislator said not a rupee of ill-gotten wealth has been recovered in the searches against any party leader.
Three top leaders of AAP - Manish Sisodia, Satyendra Jain and Sanjay Singh - are currently in jail in corruption cases. The ED is now conducting searches at the homes of several other party leaders, including Ms Atishi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's personal secretary Bibhav Kumar.
Addressing the media today, Ms Atishi said, "For the last 2 years, AAP leaders have been threatened. In the name of this so-called liquor scam, someone's house is raided, gets summoned, and is arrested. Even after hundreds of raids in two years, ED has not been able to recover even a single rupee, no concrete evidence has been found."
Ms Atishi alleged that statements made during questioning were being presented differently in court.
"An accused submitted an application, seeking CCTV footage, because there was a difference between what was said during questioning and what was submitted in court. When ED provided the footage, there was no audio," she said.
Ms Atishi alleged that AAP has received information that ED deleted the audio from every interrogation session since the probe into Delhi liquor policy case started. "This proves everything is fake. If it was not, they wouldn't need to mute the audio. There is a scam in the ED's probe," she said.
The AAP leader said that a Supreme Court judgment mandates that an interrogation session by any law enforcement agency needs to be videographed. "This applies to ED too. And the audio must be present along with the video," she said.
The AAP leader also alleged that a witness had told them that an ED official slapped him so hard that his eardrum ruptured. "Another witness said he was threatened that if he does not give statements against AAP leaders, his daughter would face harassment. People were threatened and forced to sign false statements," he said.
The AAP MLA questioned who ED wants to protect and dared the agency to declare the number of interrogation videos with audio currently with them. "I challenge ED, this is a challenge we have also made in court," she said.
ED sources said the CCTV footage does not have audio because the CCTV system did not have the audio option. ED officials, they stressed, had not removed any audio recording. The agency records statements professionally, the sources said. AAP leaders level baseless allegations daily to divert attention from the charges against their leaders, they alleged. ED sources said they may take legal action against Ms Atishi for her "false, baseless and unfortunate" allegations.
Delhi BJP president Virendraa Sachdeva alleged that AAP and all colleagues of Arvind Kejriwal are neck-deep in corruption and the probe agency is bringing this corruption to light.