Puducherry/New Delhi, Apr 20
A three-member Enforcement Directorate team was today believed to have questioned Puducherry Lt-Governor Iqbal Singh over his recommendation for issuing passport expeditiously to Hasan Ali Khan, facing money laundering and tax evasion charges. Official sources said the ED team from Chennai spent about an hour with the Lt-Governor at the Rajnivas here. However, a Rajnivas spokesman said the ED team was with Singh for 20 minutes and did not divulge what transpired between them.

"The team went upstairs and returned after 20 minutes and I cannot say anything else. The team did not tell anything. I am conveying what I have been asked to. What transpired I cannot say," S Srinivasan, private secretary to the Lt -Governor, told reporters. When persisted with the query whether the team questioned the Lt-Governor, Srinivasan said he could not say anything as "I did not accompany them upstairs". Asked if there would be a visit again by the ED officials to meet the Lt-Governor, he said "I cannot say anything." The ED's questioning comes in the wake of the Prime Minister's Office clearance to the Enforcement Directorate's request to record a statement of Singh in connection with his recommendation as a Congress Rajya Sabha member in 1997 for expeditious issue of passport to Pune stud farm owner Khan.

Meanwhile, volunteers and leaders of various outfits today courted arrest here when they staged a dharna near Raj Nivas pressing for recall of Lt Governor Iqbal Singh for his alleged links with suspected money launderer Hasan Ali Khan. “11 organisations had jointly sent telegrams to the President and Prime Minister, requesting them to recall Iqbal Singh,” Loku Ayyappan, convener of local unit of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, who headed the stir, told reporters here. — PTI