IMA scam: Karnataka BJP leader demands sacking of minister, CBI probe

MANGALURU: Karnataka BJP spokesperson Anwar Manippady on Thursday demanded that CM HD Kumaraswamy sack his ministerial colleague BZ Zameer Ahmad Khan for his apparent complicity in the I Monetary Advisory (IMA) group scam and hand over probe of the ponzi scheme to the CBI. Failure to do so will only expose pro-minority chest beating act of the Congress while its leaders continue to loot the minority with impunity, he said.
Anwar told reporters that he had red-flagged activities of IMA group that he described as the most fraudulent company that people ever set their eyes up on during the assembly elections in 2018. Noting that the BJP had put him charge of Chamrajpet assembly constituency from where Zameer won, Anwar said he had drawn attention of the government and authorities even then to what he said was apparent fraud that the group was perpetuating.
The kind of embezzlement of public funds cannot take place without the active connivance of its promoter Mohammed Mansoor Khan and those in corridors of power, Anwar said, adding even the Reserve Bank of India had successively warned the state government to investigate the group’s activities. The promoter openly used Muslim religious institutions and network to solicit funds for the group and this was happening in the open, Anwar noted.
To a claim by Zameer Ahmad that he had received Rs 9.3 crore from Mansoor Khan in a land deal, Anwar said the shifting claims of the minister that it was a donation and then a loan and later a payment for business deal gives rise to lots of suspicion. The purported audio clip in which Mansoor claimed that Shivajinagar MLA Roshan Baig was not returning Rs 400 crore borrowed from him also puts the senior Congress MLA under a cloud, he said.
The IMA group scam is in the line of series of frauds perpetuated by the Congress leaders in general and their minority leaders in particular against their own ilk, Manipaddy said. The Amanath Cooperative Bank scam involving former union minister Rahman Khan, the usurping of the Wakf property worth Rs 2.30-lakh crore is all indicative of how these leaders have treated official property as their own personal assets and misused it, Manipaddy added.