Pune: Hasan Ali Khan, a racehorse owner at the centre of an alleged multicrore money laundering racket, was on Saturday served notice to present himself before the Crime Branch here by Monday.

Crime Branch Inspector Bhanupratap Barge and two policemen visited Mr. Khan's house in upmarket Koregaon Park here and served the notice to his wife Rema.

Ms. Rema told the police that her husband duly answered queries from the Income Tax and the Enforcement Directorate subsequent to the search conducted in January. Mr. Barge said Mr. Khan was not in the custody of police in Pune or any other investigating agencies as had been reported in a section of the media.

He said Mr. Khan's accounts in two banks — ABN Amro and Muslim Cooperative Bank — had been frozen.

In Mumbai, sources in the Securities and Exchange Board of India said the market regulator was not asked to probe Mr. Khan's financial activities. "Technically, SEBI can come into the picture only after Mr. Khan's alleged Swiss bank accounts are investigated and it is established that he misused the stock market for money laundering," a source said.

6 cases in Hyderabad

In Hyderabad, police said it was suspected that Mr. Khan was the same man against whom six criminal cases, including those of cheating and forgery, were registered in the city in the early 1990s. Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh said the police "are still verifying the records" but media reports suggested "that Hasan Ali, against whom the cases were registered [in the city], is a Pune-based businessman now figuring in a hawala racket."

Asked to confirm whether the racehorse owner was the same man, Mr. Singh said: "We have not yet received any specific information from the Income Tax Department in this case." — PTI

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