The Enforcement Directorate (ED) concluded its searches at the residential and business entities of AAP Rajya Sabha member Ashok Kumar Mittal after three days on Friday night.
Mittal, who is founder chancellor of Lovely Professional University (LPU), is being probed in a case linked to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
The ED teams came out of the LPU campus and Lovely Autos on Friday night. The federal agency has yet to come up with any official statement about the outcome of the raids.
The raids started on April 15, with ED sleuths carrying out search operations at 10 locations, including the Phagwara-based campus of LPU, the residences of Mittal in Jalandhar Cantonment, Lovely Autos, Lovely Sweets, Lovely Distance Education Centre and Gurugram-based Tetr College of Business and Masters Union College of Business, all entities of the Lovely Group owned by Mittal and his brothers, Ramesh Mittal and Naresh Mittal.
The ED action has created a political uproar in the state, with AAP leaders accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of using federal agencies as a tool to intimidate Opposition parties and their leaders.
On April 3, Mittal was appointed as the AAP’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, replacing Raghav Chadha after the latter fell out of favour with the party leadership.
Mittal is the second AAP leader to face ED action. On November 6, 2023, the ED arrested party MLA from Amargarh, Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra, in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case registered against him in 2022.
