The sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at the premises of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Durgesh Pathak in New Delhi on Thursday, sources said.

The searches, which continued for a couple of hours at his premises in New Delhi, are said to have been carried out in connection with an alleged violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

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The Central agency recently registered an FIR regarding suspected offence of criminal conspiracy by assisting any person, political party or organization in accepting foreign contribution or any currency or security from a foreign source, in contravention of the provisions of the FCRA Act. In this connection, Pathak, and another AAP office bearer Kapil Bharadwaj, along with other unknown private persons have been named as suspects.

It is alleged that the party has deliberately committed irregularities with an intention to hide identity and nationality of the real donors.

Notably, a receipt of contributions from foreigners by a political party is prohibited u/s 3 of FCRA Act 2010 and section 29B of the Representation of the People Act 1951.

Pathak held a press conference to confirm that a CBI team of CBI reached his residence in the morning hours on Thursday. He claimed that the sleuths searched his two-room flat for around 3 to 4 hours, inspecting each and every corner of the house. “They checked the almirahs, bedsheets, and even books, but did not find anything,” he said.

Pathak, however, said he was not aware of the reason behind the action. “As they displayed a search warrant no one obstructed them,” he added.

The AAP leader said that he felt whatever is being done is to scare him and create an atmosphere of fear amongst the AAP workers, making them sit at home.

According to the AAP leader, while leaving the premises, the probe agency’s officials took away photocopies of some Aadhar cards found in the house. To this, he said since he was a legislator, people used to come to him with their documents for various works.

In his response to the action, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh hit out at the ruling party at the Centre, alleging that it was trying all the tricks to bring down AAP. He alleged that the raids are being carried out to threaten Durgesh Pathak, who was recently named the AAP in-charge of Gujarat.