Bengaluru: Enforcement Directorate raids Amnesty International headquarters

Bengaluru, Oct 25: The Enforcement directorate officials are conducting a search at Amnesty International office in Bengaluru. They said the searches are being conducted under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the central probe agency is looking for documents.

The ED, they said, is looking at a possible and alleged violation of the FEMA linked to an earlier Union home ministry's probe into the NGO's accounts related to Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) funds.

The agency, sometimes back, has frozen over a dozen bank accounts of environmental NGO Greenpeace and its linked entity after it conducted searches at their premises in Bengaluru on charges of alleged forex violations.

The raids at office of the human rights organization - which began at 2 pm -- comes two weeks after it conducted searches in the Bengaluru offices of another non-profit, global environmental NGO Greenpeace, and other establishments associated with it and froze accounts.

Earlier in October, the Enforcement Directorate had frozen over a dozen bank accounts of environmental NGO Greenpeace and its linked entity after it conducted searches at their premises in Bangalore on charges of alleged forex violations.