NEW DELHI: A day after conducting raids on the Herald House on the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg here and 11 other related locations, including Lucknow, Kolkata and Mumbai, in connections with the alleged money laundering in the National Herald newspaper case, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday sealed the building, with the instructions not to open the premises without its prior permission.
A passport office of the Government of India is also located in the building
that was sealed without allowing its staff or others working there to remove their papers. The raid was conducted since the Herald House is the registered office address of Associated Journals Limited (AJL), the publishers of the National Herald and Navjeevan newspapers.
A small editorial staff of the two newspapers also operate from the premises. They do not know if any of the rooms lying closed in their office is having the AJL records.
Sources in the ED on the condition of anonymity said a case is being built to declare the Herald House as illegally acquired by the Young Indian firm linked to the Gandhi family under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) since the value of the building so acquired is much above the total assets of Young Indian as per the money trail detected so far.
The Congress, whose MPs entered the Lok Sabha well on Wednesday to create a ruckus over the ED raid on the Herald House, alleged that the ED has become a “tool” in the hands of the Centre to “destroy” the opposition parties. Its Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the party was not being allowed to raise the issue of the alleged “misuse” of the ED in Parliament.
