‘Role in hawala transactions’: ED grills Arvind Kejriwal’s PA Bibhav Kumar, legislator Durgesh Pathak

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 8

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday questioned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak in the excise policy-linked money laundering case.

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Their statement was recorded under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said. Both of them have been questioned in this case earlier too.

Pathak is a member of AAP’s political affairs committee and national executive and in-charge of its organisation building team. The ED has alleged Rs 45 crore of the Rs 100 crore bribe was taken through hawala route from South Group and used in AAP’s Goa election campaign in 2021-22. It has cited statements of Dinesh Arora, a close aide of former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, and other individuals from several companies involved in routing cash payments. These persons were managed by former AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair and Pathak, the ED has alleged.

Sources said Kumar’s questioning was essential in connection with the engagements of Kejriwal who was arrested by the ED in this case last month. He is currently lodged in the Tihar Jail.

The agency had alleged in its earlier chargesheets that at least 36 accused, including former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Kumar, “destroyed, used or changed” 170 phones to conceal evidence of “kickbacks” worth thousands of crores of rupees in the alleged scam. The IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) of Kumar’s mobile number is stated to have been changed four times between September 2021 and July 2022, according to the ED chargesheet filed before a local court last year.

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