ED summons to Shabir Ahmad Shah's daughter 'shameful: Mehbooba

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Thursday termed as "shameful" the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons to the teenage daughter of jailed separatist Shabir Ahmad Shah in a 14-year-old money laundering case.

Mufti said she believed that vindictive politics was being played in Jammu and Kashmir for garnering votes across the country.

"They arrested Mohammad Yasin Malik, then they called Mirwaiz to Delhi (for questioning) and now Shabir Shah's daughter has been summoned. It is regrettable and shameful for the country," Mehbooba told reporters at Kulgam where she was campaigning for Lok Sabha elections.

The former chief minister is contesting from Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency, where polling is being held in three stages.

Mufti said the summon to Sama Shabir, Shah's 19-year-old daughter who is pursuing studies at Manchester in the UK, was "bad". "She must have been barely five-years-old when this case was registered," she said.

Hardline Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani also condemned the ED summons.

"Shabir Ahmad Shah and Altaf Ahmad Shah have spent most of their life in Indian jails... They are in their custody to answer any question and issuing notices to their children is not only undemocratic, immoral but shameful as well," he said in a statement here.

Sama was issued summons at her home in Srinagar. The first date for her to appear before the agency was on April 18 and the second on Wednesday.

Shah was arrested on July 25, 2017 in the 2005 case related to money laundering and alleged financing of terror groups.

The ED had registered a case in 2007 based on the investigation by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in the August 2005 case, wherein the police had arrested Mohammed Aslam Wani, an alleged hawala dealer, who had claimed that he passed on Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.

Asked about Income Tax Department raids on a relative of former minister Imran Ansari, Mufti said "What can I do in it, whether it (raids) was right or wrong?"