New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate officials stopped Journalist Rana Ayyub from flying to London on Tuesday. She was stopped at Mumbai airport before she could board a flight to London.

She was an accused in an alleged money laundering case. ED is investigating alleged violation of foreign funding rules by Rana Ayyub while collecting donations for Covid-19 relief. Rana Ayyub in her tweet said that the ED’s summons very curiously reached her inbox only after she was stopped at Mumbai airport. I was stopped today at Mumbai immigration from travelling to deliver this address and onwards to International Journalism Festival to deliver the keynote speech on Indian democracy, she added.

ED has summoned her for questioning on April 1^st. The money laundering case against Ms Ayyub is based on a FIR filed by Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad Police in September, by a Vikas Sankrityayan the founder of an NGO called Hindu IT Cell and a resident of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad. According to a document attributed to ED sources the agency which investigates financial crimes found that the journalist had risen over ₹ 2.69 crore through an online crowd funding platform called Ketto for charitable purposes between 2020 and 2021.