Jaffer Sharief wants CBI probe into Amanath bank scam

The fault lines within the ruling Congress party in the state are showing signs of widening with senior party leader and former Union minister CK Jaffer Sharief demanding a CBI inquiry into the Amanath Cooperative Bank scandal, which cast its shadow over Union minister for minority affairs K Rahman Khan.

Sharief launched a relay fast to press for the CBI inquiry, at the Khuddus Saab Idgah field in the city on Friday, after performing namaaz. He accused the state government of being “insensitive” towards the issue.

The bank, mainly a minority institution, has been in dire straits, as RBI directed it to freeze all transactions following blatant violation of the central bank’s guidelines. For the last six months, the bank has been allowing depositors to withdraw only Rs1,000 per account. It announced recently that depositors’ monies would be returned after Ramzan.

Khan was one of the founders of the bank. He also served as its president when the alleged irregularities took place. Khan and his aides are alleged to have siphoned off more than Rs110 crore from the bank on the pretext of giving loans to close relatives of the minister. It is alleged that the loans were not recovered.

“The management of the bank should be sacked immediately in the interest of ensuring justice to lakhs of depositors belonging to minority community,” Sharief added, without naming Rahman Khan, even as his supporters raised slogans against Union minister and hit a poster of the Union minister with slippers.

Pointing out that bank frauds exceeding Rs2 crore have to be referred to the CBI, Sharief said that in the case of Amanath fraud,” the procedure was not followed.