Enforcement Directorate confiscates the property of human rights organization Amnesty International India. Assets worth Rs 17.66 crore were seized.
The ED was investigating a complaint that it had received foreign funds in violation of foreign exchange rules. Amnesty International India’s bank account has been frozen.
Earlier, Amnesty International ceased operations in India.
The organization has stated that it will terminate all operations in India and lay off all employees. On September 10, 2020, all the bank accounts of the organization in India were frozen.
The group said the government was deliberately targeting and hunting down such human rights groups.
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Witch-hunt Against Amnesty International
Citing a “reprisal” by the Indian government against its human rights work, Amnesty International had to lay off staff and halt operations in India.
In a statement, the watchdog accused India’s Hindu nationalist government of “an incessant witch-hunt” against human rights organizations that have revealed wrongdoing by Indian authorities in recent years. Amnesty International’s latest investigations in India have focused on alleged human rights abuses in India’s only Muslim-majority region, Kashmir, as well as on alleged misconduct by Indian police in last February’s Delhi riots that killed dozens of mostly Muslim civilians.
The CBI has also registered a case against Amnesty India for allegedly accepting $ 10 billion in foreign direct investment from the UK.
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In 2016, they charged the group with sedition for holding an event in the southern city of Bengaluru, related to Kashmir.
In 2018, Indian authorities raided Amnesty International’s Delhi office and froze its bank accounts. They have long accused the group of violating rules on foreign funding, including as far back as 2009 before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party won power nationally.
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