The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday summoned former state home minister Anil Deshmukh’s son, Hrishikesh Deshmukh, to show up at the ED office for questioning on Friday in connection with the money laundering case in which his father has been arrested and is in the agency’s custody till November 6.
According to ED, dismissed assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze allegedly collected ₹ 4.7 crore from orchestra bar owners in Mumbai for ‘smooth functioning of the bars’ and gave this money to Deshmukh’s personal assistant Sanjeev Palande who later handed over the money to someone in Nagpur.
ED officials said its investigation revealed that through hawala channels, this money was sent to the Delhi-based Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain who operated bogus companies.
The Jain brothers are alleged to have diverted this money as donations to Nagpur-based Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, a trust controlled by the Deshmukh family.
ED officials suspect that the Jain brothers were acting on instructions of Deshmukh’s son Hrishikesh Deshmukh and want to record his statement.
The agency also intends to confront him with his father and quiz the two together, an ED official said, adding that the agency will decide if there is a need to place him under arrest after questioning him.
Hrishikesh Deshmukh was earlier summoned twice by the agency, but like his father, he too failed to appear before the federal agency mandated to probe money laundering.
His father, Anil Deshmukh, was arrested by ED after questioning him for 12 hours on Monday on grounds that he was being evasive.
It was the first time that the former home minister appeared before ED officials who had issued multiple summons seeking his appearance over the last four months.
ED’s case against Deshmukh is based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on allegations by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh against Deshmukh. Singh alleged that Deshmukh asked Vaze and other police officers to collect ₹100 crore every month from restaurants and bars in Mumbai.
Apart from arresting Deshmukh, his personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde were arrested by ED earlier in June.
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