Jammu, Oct 21: Maintaining that the crusade against corruption launched by the state Vigilance Bureau will continue, state Finance and Planning Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Beig has said more ministers and leaders in previous Farooq Abdullah government are likely to be booked soon. "There are fully prepared cases against some ministers and leaders in previous National Conference government for prosecution in corruption cases during the regime of NC," Beig told reporters in a informal chat yesterday.
The bureau has already moved the state governor for the required permission before prosecuting the leaders," Beig said but refused to name those likely to be prosecuted.
Beig also refuted the charges made by NC president Omar Abdullah that initiation of vigilance inquiries against NC leaders amounted to witch-hunting and political vendetta saying the bureau was an autonomous body and government could neither direct it nor ask for withdrawing the case against any one.
If the state government wanted to indulge in witch-hunting most of the leaders have been in jails, Beig said.
"NC leaders don't want even investigations against them and are accusing the coalition government of witch-hunting", he said while citing financial implications as the reason for the delay in implementation of the Wazir report, but said the would be implemented as soon as "financial position permits."
Dismissing Omar Abdullah's challenge to the coalition to dissolve the state assembly and call for fresh elections, the senior PDP minister, claimed it was NC not PDP which refrained from facing the Srinagar civil polls.
Bureau Report