LUCKNOW: Continuing with its crackdown on international human trafficking racket, the UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Tuesday arrested a former student of Lucknow’s Nadwa from New Delhi’s Nizamuddin railway station, identified as Mohammed Abdul Awwal (37) a native of Goalpara, Assam. He has been residing in Delhi since 2018.
Special DG, law and order, Prashant Kumar, said that the accused was instrumental in opening accounts in a private bank in the names of those from Bangladesh and Myanmar nationals to get money from FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) accounts of a Delhi-based NGO.
“We suspect use of these funds in anti-national activities and terror funding as around Rs 20 crore was transferred to such accounts in the past three years, said Kumar. Abdul has studied till Class 12 as per the Madrasa education system,” he said.
ATS said that interrogation of the accused revealed that he met one Abdul Gaffar in Delhi during Covid outbreak in 2020, when norms for opening bank accounts were relaxed. Gaffar and his subordinates motivated the accused to open accounts in a private bank in the names of Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas, in which the former could transfer small funds to every account through FCRA accounts of NGO ‘Sun Shine Health and Social Welfare Trust’ in which funds were transferred from European countries.
Gaffar transferred funds to these bank accounts and the accused, in connivance with the former, used to withdraw all these amounts and share it equally. The accused revealed that Gaffar did similar things to many other bank accounts opened by some more people in his network, they said.
“The modus operandi to bring funds from abroad clearly suggested that the nexus was involved in using this money into anti-national activities by violating FCRA norms. The ATS sleuths are carefully scanning details of all these bank accounts and further investigation in the process is on,” a senior ATS official emphasized added that
In the last one-month ATS has arrested five linked to the same syndicate who also include two from Bangalore.