ED files PMLA case against Markaz management, Saad

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has now registered a money-laundering case against Maulana Mohammad Saad and other senior leaders of the Nizamuddin Markaz management in connection with the Tablighi Jamaat congregation held in the first week of March.

The financial probe agency has taken cognizance of a Delhi Police FIR to register the case under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

According to a senior agency official, the ED has booked Saad along with the organisation and its management and will be looking into where the Markaz gets its funding from. Officials added that bank account records of Markaz officials will also be investigated.

The Delhi Police, in its FIR, claimed that the Markaz management had "deliberately, willfully, negligently and malignantly" disobeyed orders of prohibition issued by the Delhi Government to hold the congregation. However, according to Markaz management, the congregation had the required permissions to hold its event.

Aggressive testing amongst the Jamaat attendees had eventually led to a large number of COVID-19 cases emerging from the cluster, which eventually became one of the largest clusters of cases in the country.

Moreover, now that the COVID-19 cases originating from the event have been quarantined, it is possible that these foreign religious scholars might be held back in the country even after they are cured.

A senior official in the probe agency said that a lot of these attendees might be summoned for investigation.

"We will see what the complexity of the case will entail and then we will take the appropriate decision," he said, adding that the sheer size of the "alleged conspiracy" would make the probe very difficult.