Rana Ayyub was openly flouting FCRA norms with her COVID donation drive. Got busted

Alleged journalist Rana Ayyub finds herself at the centre of a controversy yet again. This time around, the allegations levelled against the alleged journalist are very serious in nature. While Rana Ayyub is known to have been writing propagandist lies against India in foreign media publications for exorbitant rates, the charges now facing Ayyub include those of FCRA violations in India. Ever since the Modi government has come to power in the country, FCRA violations have been taken very seriously, and the Act itself has been made very stringent with amendments.

The fear of Indian law does not seem to have demotivated Rana Ayyub from going about allegedly flouting FCRA norms. The alleged journalist is known to have carried out at least three different fundraisers on Ketto.org. One was for slum dwellers and farmers, the second was intended to benefit migrant workers while the latest fundraiser was carried out for the benefit of daily wage earners. While Rana Ayyub’s alleged illegalities seem to have been missed by the public during her first two fundraisers, the latest campaign by the propagandist has indeed raised many eyebrows.

According to FCRA norms, in order to receive foreign funds, one has to either register the organisation and get an FCRA certificate or one has to receive prior permission from relevant authorities. Under no circumstances can any individual accept foreign funds into their bank account. However, according to a receipt posted by a Twitter user (@parixit111), it was clearly mentioned that the donations would be ultimately landing up in the personal bank account of someone.

Note: TFI could not independently verify the veracity of these claims.

It does not take an incredible genius to figure out who that ‘someone’ would be. Since the fundraiser owner was Rana Ayyub, the donations would naturally be transferred to her personal bank account, or in a bank account whose details have been provided by the alleged journalist to Ketto. Although Rana Ayyub had denied any funds were transferred to her bank account while falsely claiming that the money went into a bank account belonging to Ketto, many are not convinced.

And here is the catch. Ketto does not open individual bank accounts for every fundraiser, and instead, stores the money in a virtual UPI form which ultimately gets withdrawn by the fundraiser owner from their own or associated bank accounts. And since Rana Ayyub has been carrying out relief work for quite some time now, it goes without saying that she withdrew the fundraiser money to help those in need.

This means the donations were transferred to Ayyub’s bank account, or to an account whose details she must have provided to Ketto. As such, she acted in violation of FCRA norms – for which the alleged journalist must be booked. Even if, by any chance, Rana Ayyub was able to transfer such donations to the account of an FCRA registered organisation, the latest FCRA amendments prohibit such organisations to collect funds or doll them out, on behalf of non-FCRA registered entities. Either way, Rana Ayyub seems to have violated Indian law.

In perhaps a sign of her criminality, the alleged journalist has now ended her latest fundraiser on Ketto and blamed “a malicious campaign” on social media along with “hitjobs by propaganda websites” as the reason for her fundraiser finding itself in the midst of a national storm. She added, “As a journalist who values her integrity and the trust placed by my readers and followers, we have always made sure that me and my team stay on the right side of the law and be compliant with the extant Indian tax and regulatory laws…To make sure we do not cause inconvenience to the donors and us, I have decided to refund all contributions from foreign donors back to those who donated.”

https://twitter.com/jubester13/status/1398565038131224583?s=20

Rana Ayyub’s “noble work” needs to be looked into by Indian authorities as the allegations made against her merit an investigation. If found guilty, the propagandist must be dealt with stringently and booked for accepting foreign funds – in violation of major FCRA norms. While defaming India internationally, in the past one year, Rana Ayyub has earned the distinction of sullying her country’s Covid-19 response in international publications who are continuously on the lookout for desperate Indians to run down their country. Rana Ayyub almost always seems to fit in perfectly into that role.