“I am proud of the relief work that I have done,” Rana Ayyub tells The Quint, hours after the Delhi Court set aside a Look Out Circular (LOC) against her and allowed her to travel abroad, subject to specific conditions.
“No intimidation tactics can deter me from speaking the truth or from helping my people seek justice and redressal. I have full faith in the judiciary, which I believe will see through the witch hunt against me."Rana Ayyub
Ayyub was stopped at the Mumbai airport from boarding a flight to London on 29 March. The Enforcement Directorate had cited an ongoing probe in a money laundering case for stopping her from travelling out of the country.
Dubbing the high court order lifting ED’s travel ban on her “the first step to justice," Ayyub told The Quint: “Justice would be defending my integrity and my truth in the face of baseless and malafide allegations with absolutely no basis in reality.”
“A selfless work done by me and countless volunteers on the ground has been used as a tool to prop up charges against me in response to my journalism. I am proud of the relief work that I have done risking my own life, a spine surgery, hospitalisation, all through trying to provide relief to those who were left to die. If a need arises in the future, I will not think twice before going beyond the call of duty and helping people.”Rana Ayyub
Right of Personal Liberty, Freedom of Speech: What the Delhi HC Said
The Delhi High Court’s Justice CD Singh, had on Monday set aside the LOC issued against Ayyub, and pointed out in his order:
“An LOC is a coercive measure to make a person surrender and consequentially interferes with petitioner’s right of personal liberty and free movement."
He also explicitly stated that the impugned LOC was liable to be set aside for "being devoid of merits as well as for infringing the human right of the petitioner to travel abroad and to exercise her freedom of speech and expression."
The Case Against Ayyub
The ED's case against Ayyub, registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), relates to an FIR registered by the Ghaziabad Police in September 2021, which alleges irregularities in fund collection by Ayyub.
The ED has filed a money laundering case in connection with the predicate offence being examined by the police and the Income Tax department.
The irregularities in question allude to three crowdfunding campaigns initiated by the journalist between April 2020-June 2021, facilitated by the virtual platform Ketto.
Ayyub, however, has rejected all the allegations against her.
Her statement shared via Twitter says, "In my three public campaigns undertaken on Ketto, I had raised a total of Rs 2,69,44,679 (about 26.9 million). I have provided all bills and invoices for the relief work undertaken by me, which is to the tune of Rs 40 lakh."
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