New Delhi, Sept 11 () Union minister
Kiren Rijiju today hit out at
Congress over controversial Islamic preacher
Zakir Naik's NGO donating Rs 50 lakh to an allied entity of
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation
, saying instead of introspecting the party was falsely accusing the government of leaking information.
Rijiju said despite knowing about the transaction, the government did not make public the information or "play politics" over the issue.
"The issue of Zakir
Naik
's
Islamic Research Foundation donating Rs 50 lakh to
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation or its related body ... We knew it more than a month ago. But we did not want to play politics.
"So, we have asked for more information. In the meantime, some individual journalists filed
RTI
to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and got the information," the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
The Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), founded by Naik, had donated Rs 50 lakh to
Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust
(RGCT), an associate entity of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, in 2011 but the amount was returned to
IRF by RGCT in July this year.
Both the IRF and the RGCT were registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulations Act and such donation of foreign funds from one FCRA registered NGO to another is authorised and legally permitted.
Rijiju said there was no question of the government leaking the information or the documents.
"We knew it long time back but we did not want to play politics but to get the correct information whatever is there," he said.
He said it was "unfortunate that rather than introspecting about what Congress has done, they are just making unnecessary accusation that the government is leaking out documentation."
"How can we leak documents like that?" he said on the sidelines of an event held to honour the families of gallantry award winners of central paramilitary forces.
The Congress had accused the government of leaking this information. Rijiju later tweeted on the issue saying, "Every action of the government is not announced instantly. There are methods for getting to the bottom of the matter." (MORE) NES ACB RT KIS
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