Bankrolling LeT: Indians claim Tunda’s network leads to LeT
Two suspects rounded up for their alleged involvement in smuggling counterfeit currency.
Abdul Karim Tunda. PHOTO: FILE
NEW DELHI:
Although Indian police have not made much headway in uncovering Abdul Karim Tunda’s alleged role in Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), they claim to have exposed the so-called LeT-ISI linkages in smuggling counterfeit currency into India.
Tunda, who was to be sent on 14-day judicial remand on Saturday, had to be taken to hospital following complaints that he was suffering from a stomach ache. He has been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) under heavy security and doctors are putting him through a battery of tests relating to cardiac problems.
But investigating agencies, based on leads obtained from Tunda in the course of his interrogation, have over the last two days arrested two persons deeply involved in the currency racket, sources said.
Mohammad Abdul Bashir, 30, was picked up late Friday from Bihar’s Katihar district, which is on the India-Nepal border, a favourite route of currency smugglers because of the border’s porous nature.
Official sources described Bashir as a ‘critical cog’ in the network that allegedly financed the LeT. Tunda’s relative Taher – supposedly his father in law – has also been Bashir’s associate.
Another Tunda associate Muhammad Alauddin, 55, was nabbed from neighbouring West Bengal on Wednesday, also a critical element in the FICN network, according to the officials.
The LeT’s top leadership used Tunda to run its illegal currency racket as a way to recruit persons into the network and would procure the FICN from an allegedly Pakistan-based FICN kingpin, Iqbal Kana, Indian officials say. Indians claim that Tunda, during interrogation, had already confessed to his hand in circulating the banknotes.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2013.
Although Indian police have not made much headway in uncovering Abdul Karim Tunda’s alleged role in Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), they claim to have exposed the so-called LeT-ISI linkages in smuggling counterfeit currency into India.
Tunda, who was to be sent on 14-day judicial remand on Saturday, had to be taken to hospital following complaints that he was suffering from a stomach ache. He has been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) under heavy security and doctors are putting him through a battery of tests relating to cardiac problems.
But investigating agencies, based on leads obtained from Tunda in the course of his interrogation, have over the last two days arrested two persons deeply involved in the currency racket, sources said.
Mohammad Abdul Bashir, 30, was picked up late Friday from Bihar’s Katihar district, which is on the India-Nepal border, a favourite route of currency smugglers because of the border’s porous nature.
Official sources described Bashir as a ‘critical cog’ in the network that allegedly financed the LeT. Tunda’s relative Taher – supposedly his father in law – has also been Bashir’s associate.
Another Tunda associate Muhammad Alauddin, 55, was nabbed from neighbouring West Bengal on Wednesday, also a critical element in the FICN network, according to the officials.
The LeT’s top leadership used Tunda to run its illegal currency racket as a way to recruit persons into the network and would procure the FICN from an allegedly Pakistan-based FICN kingpin, Iqbal Kana, Indian officials say. Indians claim that Tunda, during interrogation, had already confessed to his hand in circulating the banknotes.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2013.