9/11 attack partially funded from India, claims former New Delhi police chief

Neeraj Kumar says funds were raised through a kidnapping and handed over to Mohammad Atta

In a shocking revelation, a former Indian top police officer has claimed part of the funding for 9/11 attacks in the US came from India.

Neeraj Kumar who worked for India’s premier law enforcement agency, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and retired as Delhi Police commissioner in 2013, said the funds were raised through a kidnapping and handed over to the chief of 9/11 attackers, Mohammad Atta, by a terrorist named Omar Sheikh who was released by India in exchange of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.



Basing his claim on Harkatul Mujahideen terrorist Asif Raza Khan’s statements, the former top police officer said Sheikh was given the money by another terrorist, Aftab Ansari, who was responsible for the attack on the American Center in Kolkata, according to the Times of India.

Asif Raza said his "boss Aftab Ansari had shared the ransom money collected in the kidnapping of Partha Pratim Roy Burman, chairman-cum-managing director of Khadim Shoes with Omar Sheikh," Kumar claimed.

"Part of the ransom money received in the Burman kidnapping - about US$100,000 (at the time INR49 lakh)— later found its way from Omar Sheikh to Mohammad Atta, the chief of 9/11 attackers," Kumar who is currently heading the anti-corruption wing of BCCI wrote in his book.



Kumar claimed Asif Raza Khan’s revelation that ransom money was passed on to Mohammed Atta was mentioned in the testimony of John S Pistole, deputy assistant director counter-terrorism division of FBI, before the Senate Committee on Terrorist Financing in July 2003 at Washington.

In his tell-all book on underworld activities post-1993 Bombay blasts, Kumar narrated many incidents of chase, plans, bureaucratic wrangling and his telephonic conversations with India's most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.

"It's only an attempt to share my story, my experiences and some of my cases which have no bearing on national security," he said.

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In the book, the former police officer also mentioned a call he had received towards the end of his career when he led an operation in which some of the cricketers were arrested for alleged spot-fixing during the T-20 tournament.

"I think it was Dawood or his brother Anees who told me that I should stop chasing them as I was about to retire," Kumar added.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks as the World Trade Center Twin Towers toppled by two hijacked airliners. Hijackers crashed two other commercial jets into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

This article originally appeared on the Times of India.