Journalist Ayub Rana has been booked by Ghaziabad police on charges of money laundering and misappropriating donations meant for Covid patients and flood victims in some eastern states.

The other charges, under the Information Technology Act, are criminal breach of trust and cheating by using computer resources.

The FIR was lodged on Tuesday on the complaint of Vinod Pandey, founder of an NGO named Hindu IT Cell.

The police will take further action against Ayub only after investigating the case and if there is evidence against her, city superintendent of police Gyanendra Singh said.

Ayub’s name also figures in a recent case of circulation of a video in which a 72-year-old Bulandshahr resident had accused four men of beating him up and chopping his beard to force him to chant Jai Shri Ram.

The Ghaziabad police had, however, later found out that the communal allegations made by the elderly Muslim man were false and he had made them on the instigation of a Samajwadi Party worker.