After Modi barb, Home Ministry asks sleuths to speed up probe against NGOs

KOLKATA: The Union home ministry has directed the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate to speed up probe on non-government organisations against whom investigations were initiated eight months ago. Twelve NGOs in eastern India are being investigated by central agencies based on inputs from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Addressing a farmer’s rally in Odisha last Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alleged that some NGOs were ‘hatching a conspiracy’ to ‘finish’ him. The MHA’s direction to sleuths followed the allegation.

Missionaries of Charity, Bharat Sevasram Sangha and ISKCON are among the NGOs being probed, but sleuths have not been able to find anything incriminating in their transaction so far. “Investigation is still on. But these NGOs have been cooperating with us and nothing ambiguous has been found as of now,” said a source in the investigation team.

Five of the NGOs being probed are headquartered in Kolkata and seven in Odisha. A Canada-based NGO that received over `200 crore from foreign donors could not explain its spending. The NGO in question has claimed it had channelised funds to 80 child development centres in the eastern region of the country. Investigators, however, have not been able to trace the child development centres.