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| Let Farooq, Omar keep their word and punish sex scam criminals: Ansari | | ‘I didn’t take any tax amnesty from Mufti Govt as I had already cleared all liabilities’ | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, May 12: In an emphatic rebuttal to Dr Farooq Abdullah’s allegation that there had been a dubious quid pro behind Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari’s admission into Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2005, the high-profile Shia cleric-politician today claimed that he had cleared all of his sales tax liabilities before joining then ruling party. While claiming that Sidhra satellite township scandal was former bureaucrat B R Singh’s and a senior BJP leader’s plot to sully his image through a fabricated fraud, Ansari said that even in the recent elections for some seats in Legislative Council, Dr Abdullah had managed to secretly get Ashok Khajuria’s vote in favour an NC candidate.
Speaking in Take One TV’s talk show “Face to Face with Ahmed Ali Fayyaz” tonight, PDP’s senior Vice President and candidate for Lok Sabha constituency of Srinagar-Budgam, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari disputed Dr Farooq Abdullah’s allegation that he had left NC and joined PDP only after then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had assured him to write off his Sales Tax liabilities worth Rs 27 Cr. “Let it be clear that I did not take any tax amnesty from Mufti or his government as I had already lifted a loan from a bank and cleared all of my business group’s liabilities”, Ansari said.
“I had become disillusioned with Farooq and his party. I had seen closely how coward and obsequious to New Delhi he was. I had urged him to get a bill for autonomy (in the Assembly) but he proved to be utterly spineless. There was no question of my seeking tax amnesty which he claimed to have refused to me. Like many others, I was, in fact, a common beneficiary of the amnesty that Farooq had introduced for the benefit of some of his Jammu-based friends who owed Rs 88 Cr each to the government”, Ansari said. He claimed that he was not aware of any amnesty granted by Mufti for the benefit of certain tax defaulters.
As regards Dr Abdullah’s assertion that a criminal case had been established against Ansari and a challan concerning Sidhra development scam would soon come up against him in a court of law, the PDP stalwart asserted that the NC government had no moral or legal sanction to prosecute him in a matter in which he had been categorically exonerated by the one-man commission of inquiry headed by former J&K High Court judge, Mr Justice (Retd) K K Gupta. Justice Gupta’s report had been tabled on the floor of Assembly on March 7th in 2002 and Ansari had been, subsequently, re-inducted as a Minister in Dr Abdullah’s Cabinet.
When this host pointed out that a Crime Branch investigation, conducted by former Commissioner of Vigilance, R V Raju, had established a criminal case against him, holding his family firm M/S Classic Inn responsible of accepting “kickbacks” worth Rs 60.25 Lakh from the IPPL subsidiary, Alchemy Enterprises, Ansari asked: “Why did, Farooq Abdullah get me back as Minister into his Cabinet?”. He alleged that Sidhra scam was a conspiracy against him that had been hatched up and executed by then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s Principal Secretary, B R Singh” in cahoots with BJP leader, Ashok Khajuria. He reiterated that Khajuria had got Raju’s interim report from none other than B R Singh and flung it up in Assembly and Civil Secretariat in Jammu.
Ansari said that Farooq, BR Singh and Khajuria were still chums and claimed that even in the recent election for MLCs, the NC President had clinched the BJP leader’s vote in favour of one of the NC candidates (former Chief Secretary Vijay Bakaya). “But, I would like to tell you that if he reopens this case against me, many more cases will automatically unfold”, Ansari said.
“In their campaign in the recent Assembly elections, Farooq and Omar shouted in South Kashmir that in case they got back power, they would punish all those spared in Srinagar sex scandal. Now that the government is their’s, I call upon Farooq and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, through this programme, to punish Hakeem Yasin, Ghulam Ahmed Mir and Pirzada Sayeed, who are all their chums today”. He claimed that on the “orders from New Delhi”, names of “highly placed men” involved in Srinagar sex scam had been suppressed. “Let Farooq Abdullah expose all those who were being protected”, he added.
Ansari said that even in Raju’s report, names of “highly connected people” had been suppressed and he had been singled out for the kill. “Jammu & Kashmir Bank Chairman shall have to reveal as to who made him issue a fake bank guarantee. This revelation will indeed unfold everything and expose the real criminals”, he said.
Ansari said that by seeking and getting Governor’s sanction to his prosecution in the Sidhra scam, former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had plotted to punish him on account of his refusal to join Congress after he had left NC and shifted to PDP in 2005.
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