Journalist Rana Ayub was stopped by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the Mumbai airport on Tuesday. Ayub had reached the airport to leave for abroad. The ED has already issued a look out circular against journalist Rana Ayub. The ED wants to interrogate Ayub in a money laundering case against him and record his statement.
Officials said the journalists reached Mumbai airport to board a flight to London, but were stopped by the authorities. Soon after, an ED team questioned him at the airport and asked him to join the investigation. Ayub is understood to have been asked to appear in the ED’s office on April 1. Officials said the ED had also issued summons to him in the past.
The agency had provisionally forfeited over Rs 1.77 crore of his deposits in the bank earlier this year. The action was taken against Ayub in connection with a case related to alleged irregularities in the contributions received by him in 2020-21 from donors for COVID-19 relief.
However, officials said Ayub did not comply with the notice and the agency does not want him to leave the country as it may delay the investigation and subsequent filing of the charge sheet in the court. Ayub has tweeted about the incident.
In a series of tweets, she said, “I was stopped at Indian immigration today, when I was about to board my flight to London to deliver my speech at the ICFJ on the topic of intimidation of journalists. After this, I was scheduled to go to Italy to address the Journalism Fest on Indian Democracy.