J&K Police arrest 5 five alleged overground workers of LeT’s terror financing module
The police said that the module has its links in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab also.
The special operations group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested five overground workers of the banned proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba in Jammu as the probe into a terror financing module busted last month continued, inspector general of police of Jammu region, Mukesh Singh said Saturday.
Singh did not say when the five men were arrested but it came in the run up to Independence Day celebrations.
The arrested men have been identified as Tauqeer Ahmad Batt, Asif Batt, Khalid Latief Batt, Ghazi Iqbal and Tariq Hussain Mir. All of them hail from Doda.
On July 19, a team of the SOG Jammu had apprehended one Mubashir Farooq Batt with consignment of 1.5 lakh of Indian rupees meant for hawala transaction. The money was concealed in a tiffin box.
“During investigation of the case, SOG Jammu apprehended five more suspects involved in the module. They have admitted their involvement in the case,” said Singh.
The IGP also said that all the six accused were in contact with their handler in Pakistan identified as Mohammad Amin Batt who also uses aliases of Haroon Khubaib. Amin is the son of Dawood Batt of Kathawa, Thathri in Doda.
“He remained a district commander of the LeT in Doda and exfiltrated to Pakistan in 2007,” said the officer.
“All of them were tasked to identify naïve and gullible youth for recruitment in terror ranks, providing logistics and strengthening LeT cadre in the region, sharing information about presence of security forces and their important locations to Pakistani handlers, transportation of arms and ammunition from one location to another and distributing money among the families of active and deceased terrorists,” he added.
During questioning of all the six overground workers police found that they received an amount of ₹12,19,704 through different means on different occasions as part of this module.
During interrogation of a suspect identified as Mohammad Irfan Khan of Bijarni in Doda, it came to fore in early July that he along with two of his associates Ghazi Iqbal and Amir Batt had hoisted the Pakistani flag at Lal Draman in Doda.
“They were tasked by their Pak handler Haroon to do so. It has been further corroborated by Ghazi Iqbal, who admitted that he had received a call from Haroon for hoisting the Pakistani flag and subsequently he purchased cloth from a local shop at Doda town and stitched that flag by himself,” said the officer.
On August 5, on the disclosure of Tariq Hussain Mir, SOG Jammu recovered three more tiffin boxes from his house which contained ₹40,700, which he had received as consignment on different occasions from Pakistani handlers as part of this module, said the IGP.
“The involvement of four accused from Kashmir has also surfaced. Moreover, it has come to notice that the module has its links in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab as well,” he said.
Further investigation into the case is underway to unearth terror financing channels and overground workers network used for providing financial support and motivating youth to join terror outfits in Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said.