Inquiry ordered after meat exporter Qureshi flees to Dubai

A goof-up by the immigration staff deployed at the IGI Airport helped controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi to fly off to Dubai, on Saturday.

Qureshi succeeded in giving a slip to the immigration authorities by showing a court order procured in an income tax case. However, Qureshi is wanted in a several cases by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the meat exporter was detained on the basis of a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued in a money-laundering case against him. The immigration officials are now claiming that they have to verify whether that court order was applicable to all the cases or not.

However, top officials have accepted that the junior staff did make a mistake in letting Qureshi go.

“Our staff could have checked with the ED before allowing him to fly,” a top Immigration official said.

There were conflicting reports on Saturday that Qureshi was detained and questioned by ED officials at Delhi’s IGI Airport. Agency reports claimed ‘he was questioned by ED sleuths in connection with the money laundering cases against him”.  However, later on Saturday it emerged that he had managed give ED the slip.

Millennium Post also inadvertently reported that he was questioned by ED. According to sources, as the ED team reached the airport to take the meat exporter into custody, they were informed that he had been allowed to fly on the basis of a court order.

However, when the immigration officer realised that the court order was in connection with an income tax case, and had nothing to do with the recent ED case, the authorities ordered an inquiry. According to the airport officials, Qureshi told the authorities that he had furnished a bond and got the court’s nod to travel abroad. He even got a fax sent in this regard from his legal team to the airport. We have sought documents from the immigration authorities based on which Qureshi was allowed to travel. Our officials were on the spot to take him into custody, but he was allowed to fly abroad,” ED sources said.

The agency wanted to question Qureshi and had issued summons to him but could not lay its hands on him. The agency had registered a case against Qureshi under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) last year.