Hasan Ali refuses to give account details, says ED

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) failed to get any information from Pune businessman Hasan Ali Khan on the sources of the huge amount of money that he had allegedly laundered abroad, during the first day of video recording of his interrogation. Manish Pachouly reports.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) failed to get any information from Pune businessman Hasan Ali Khan on the sources of the huge amount of money that he had allegedly laundered abroad, during the first day of video recording of his interrogation.

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The ED had sought a local court’s permission on Wednesday to question Khan till Friday from 10.30am to 5.30pm at its Nariman Point office and also to video-record his interrogation as per the Supreme Court’s (SC) direction. The SC had come down heavily on the ED saying that there was no considerable effort to find the sources of money found. The ED had found $8 billion (Rs36,000 crore) in his UBS bank account in Switzerland. The ED also claimed that Khan maintained many other bank accounts abroad.

The ED sources said Khan remained quiet when asked about the sources of the money found in his bank account. “Despite repeated questioning, he did not utter a word. Though he agreed to knowing Kashinath Tapuriah and some monetary dealings with him, he refused to accept that he has any bank account abroad,” an ED officer said.

The ED would again bring Khan to its office on Friday and seek to get some answers from him on the sources of the black money he had laundered abroad. The ED would also question Khan’s wife Rheema on Friday.