AHMEDABAD: The report carried by this paper on AAP’s suspected hawala scandal is true, Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghvi said on Saturday.“Black money was sent by AAP to Gujarat through hawala & angadia from Delhi, Punjab and other means. This money has been caught in Bardoli, Ahmedabad, and other places. Their (AAP) Bardoli candidate has accepted that this money came from Delhi AAP’s office,” Sanghvi said.
“He received the cash through an angadia. From where has this money come? This question should be asked to AAP leaders,” Sanghavi said. A statement sent to this newspaper by AAP spokesman Pritam Singh said: “AAP has nothing to do with any such money. The AAP candidate has not given any such statement. It is an attempt by BJP to tarnish the AAP image due to the growing graph of the party in the state. The BJP has become very desperate and will resort to similar dirty tricks in the next one month.”
However, this newspaper stood by its story and took AAP candidate Rajendra Solanki’s statement given to the police on October 17. In the statement, he accepted in writing: “He (Saurabh) said that the money was received by him from an angadia (hawala operator). The money was meant for the expenses of the party event.”
Police sources said the Anti-Terrorism Squad, the Income Tax and the state’s Special Operation Group are investigating the individuals in various cities of Gujarat in which transactions worth crores of rupees have reportedly surfaced. An official said: “We have detected some more cases of hawala through angadia in Ahmedabad as well. The investigation is going on, he added.
“So far we have come to know that Saini, a Punjab resident, and another person, Rudra Pratap, a resident of Bihar, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, a person named Kumar from Haryana, and Sehjad from Delhi have been interrogated in connection with hawala links,” he said.