ED questions former Haryana CM Bhupinder Hooda in money laundering case

Former Haryana chief minister and senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda was on Wednesday questioned by the ED in connection with a money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in land acquisition at Manesar during 2004-07, official sources said.

The agency recorded the statement of the 76-year-old Hooda under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.

The Enforcement Directorate probe pertains to "illegal" acquisition of land in Haryana's Manesar between 2004 and 2007 with the alleged connivance of senior government functionaries and bureaucrats.

Several farmers and land owners had alleged that they had been cheated to the tune of about Rs 1,500 crore in this land acquisition case.

The agency had filed a PMLA case in the alleged land scam deal in September, 2016 on the basis of a Haryana Police FIR.

The CBI too is probing the case.