by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Ramesh Shah
Lucknow : Gorakhpur terror funding mastermind Ramesh Shah has been arrested in a joint operation by the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Police, an official said on Thursday.
The arrest was made from Pune on Tuesday and he is being brought to Lucknow on transit remand.
Inspector General of ATS Aseem Arun said that soon after his arrival, Shah would be produced in an Uttar Pradesh court and taken on remand for further interrogation.
Six persons involved in criminal conspiracy and distributing money into various bank accounts on the instructions given by a Pakistani handler were arrested on March 24 from Gorakhpur, an official told IANS.
The 28-year-old Shah was the kingpin of the gang.
On his instruction, the ATS official said more than Rs 1 crore exchanged hands between the Pakistani handler and terror operatives, with major funds coming from the Middle East, Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala and distributed to various states.
Shah hails from Gopalganj in Bihar and has been operating a shopping mart in Gorakhpur for many years.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
T.R. Zeliang
New Delhi : The NIA has summoned former Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang for questioning in connection with an alleged “tax collection and terror funding” case, an official said on Monday.
The case pertains to alleged extortion by groups such as NSCN(K), NSCN(IM) and Naga National Council from at least 14 government departments.
Zeliang has been asked to appear at the National Investigation Agency headquarters here on Tuesday with relevant documents.
Ahead of the Assembly election in the state, the NIA had summoned Zeliang’s Officer on Special Duty and two of his office staff for questioning in connection with the alleged terror funding case.
On January 18, 2017, the NIA had conducted searches in various government departments in Nagaland and seized receipts that showed payments to the tune of Rs 2 crore.
The agency had said that these seizures prima facie indicate the connivance of these government organisations in funding various underground organisations operating in Nagaland.
According to sources, these departments include the Directorate of Information Technology, Directorate of Soil and Water Conservation, Directorate of Irrigation, Directorate of Rural Development, Directorate of Urban Development, PWD, Roads and Buildings, and Directorate of Information and Public Relations.
S. Khetoshe Sumi, a senior cadre of NSCN(K), was apprehended by the Assam Rifles in Dimapur on July 31, 2016, according to the NIA.
Sumi reportedly revealed that he was the organisation’s “in-charge of finance” and his key responsibility was to collect funds through illegal taxation of various government departments, the NIA said.
The NIA probe into government workers and underground funding is a sensitive subject in Nagaland.
In November 2017, massive protests rocked Kohima after seven government officials were reportedly arrested for funding underground groups, called Naga National Political Groups, through taxation.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The NIA on Friday told a court here that it will file next week a chargesheet in the case of terror funding in the Kashmir Valley as a court extended till January 18 the judicial custody of seven Kashmiri separatists and a businessman.
According to court sources, during the in-camera proceedings, the National Investigation Agency told Additional Sessions Judge Tarun Sherawat that the final report in the case will be filed next week.
“The investigation of the case is at concluding stage and the evidence on record is being summed up,” NIA said.
The agency urged the court to extend the judicial custody of the eight accused for another seven days. The court did so, via video conferencing.
The eight have been charged with receiving funds from Pakistan to sponsor terror activities and stone-pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.
On July 24, 2017, the NIA arrested seven of them — Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah — on charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against India.
Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan. Islam is a close aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat.
Businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, accused of acting as a conduit for channelling funds for separatists and terror activities in the Kashmir Valley, was arrested on August 17 last year.
He was allegedly collecting funds from Pakistan and banned terrorist organisations and transferring the same to Hurriyat leaders.
Watali is known to be friends with Pakistani leaders as well as separatists, besides leading politicians in Kashmir, the NIA said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Syed Salahuddin
New Delhi : The NIA on Thursday carried out searches at the residence of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in Kashmir valley in connection with a six-year-old terror funding case.
An NIA official told IANS, “The agency carried out searches at the residence of Shahid in Soibugh village of Budgam district early in the morning today (Thursday) which has concluded now.”
“We have seized mobile phones, laptops, hard disks and several incriminating documents.”
The raid comes two days after the counter-terror probe agency arrested Shahid, 42, a state government employee, in Delhi after he was called for questioning at its headquarters in a 2011 terror funding case that pertains to terror money sent through hawala channels by militants based in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to Jammu and Kashmir to instigate terrorist activities.
The NIA has alleged that Shahid over the years has been receiving and collecting funds through international wire money transfer from Hizbul Mujahideen militant Aijaz Bhat, a Srinagar resident now based in Saudi Arabia.
Shahid even during his questioning admitted to have received funds from the members of Hizbul Mujahideen on the direction of his father. He had also revealed the names of his associates abroad associated with the Hizbul Mujahideen and involved in raising, collecting and transferring funds from abroad to India.
After his arrest, the NIA said Shahid was one of Aijaz Bhat’s several contacts who were in telephonic touch “to receive the money transfer codes”. The money was meant to fund Hizbul Mujahideen’s militant activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
The NIA had filed two chargesheets against six accused in the case in 2011. Four of them – Ghulam Mohammed Bhat, one of the closest aides of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Sidiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani Liloo and Farooq Ahmad Dagga – are currently in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
Two of the accused, Mohammad Maqbool Pandit and Aijaz Bhat, are on the run and have been declared proclaimed offenders. Pandit, like Aijaz Bhat, has been an active Hizbul Mujahideen militant and is currently based in Pakistan.
Ghulam Mohammed Bhat, Ganai, Liloo and Dagga were arrested on January 22, 2011, and Rs 21.20 lakh was recovered from them.
After their arrest, Aijaz Bhat used to send money to Shahid.
The Hizbul Mujahideen chief’s son, according to an NIA official, received at least four instalments of money in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The NIA here on Monday questioned a Kashmir University PhD student and the head of Kashmir Traders’ and Marketing Federation in connection with its ongoing Jammu and Kashmir terror funding case.
The student Aala Fazili and the traders body chief Yasin Mohammad Khan were questioned at the National Investigation (NIA) headquarters here, an official said.
They were summoned by the agency last week to appear before the investigators in the case, he said.
Informed sources said they were questioned about alleged funding to various groups which pelted stones on security forces on several occasions.
Meanwhile, the Kashmir traders’ body staged a protest in the Valley over over the summons issued to its chief in connection with the case.
The NIA had registered a case on May 30 against separatist and secessionist leaders, including unknown members of the Hurriyat Conference, who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs, officials said.
The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, the probe agency said in its FIR.
Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front of the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused.
The FIR also names organisations such as the two factions of the Hurriyat, one led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an all-women outfit of separatists.
The NIA, so far, has arrested 11 persons in the case.
—IANS
