The fraudulent IMA scam has claimed the lifetime savings of many people who thought the Ponzi scheme to be a good investment for a better future. Not just from Karnataka, many people from Kerala and other places have also invested lakhs of rupees in it.
After the IMA kingpin, Mohammed Mansoor Khan fled to the UAE, seven directors of the harried group - Anwar Pasha, Arshad Khan, Naveed Ahmed, Nasir Hussain, Nizamuddin, Dadapeer and Waseem - who went into hiding surrendered themselves to the police on Tuesday (June 11) and have been remanded for police custody. The police are interrogating the IMA directors over the whereabouts of Mansoor Khan. Their passports have been seized by the authorities to stop them from fleeing the country. The police have also arrested the auditor and partner of IMA's bullion trading Iqbal Khan.
While Khan had accused senior Congress leader and Shivajinagar legislator Roshan Baig of taking Rs 400 crores from him and not returning it back in his alleged audio clip, the MLA has denied the accusation claiming that he was being targeted by his own party and that cheap politics is at play.
Baig who was addressing a press conference on Wednesday told media that he has no involvement with IMA and has not taken money from them. He also demanded the CBI to take over the case promising fully cooperate with the investigations.
It is also alleged that the Minister for Minorities Welfare and Food and Civil Supplies B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan also had some involvement with the group on some land deal. However, the minister said that he has no links with the scandalous IMA but he has sold a property of his to the group back in 2017 and had received Rs 5 crores for it.
Minister Zameer Ahmed said that he had visited IMA's office regarding complaints in May after some messages were circulated on Whatsapp claiming the company of defaulting payments to its investors. Ahmed along with other top Muslim Congress leaders including Shantinagar MLA NA Haris and Rizwan Arshad had a meeting over the issue and has submitted a list of 25 assets owned by IMA to the Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and Home Minister MB Patil.
Even though the police have registered more than 20,000 complaints, the magnitude of the scam is yet to be ascertained as the investors are flooding to AS Convention Hall at Shivajinagar to file more complaints.
The government had formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the supervision of MA Saleem, Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police (Crime and Technical Services), Deputy Inspector General of Police (Fire and Emergency services) BR Ravikanthe Gowda and Deputy Commissioner of Police S Girish along with three ACP-level officers and four inspectors to nab the absconder Khan who has duped innumerous depositors of their investments.
