New Delhi: Security and intelligence agencies have unearthed a major terror-funding racket pumping funds to the militants in Jammu and Kashmir via the Nepal-Bihar-UP route, according to sources.
Officials insist that several over-ground workers and their sympathisers working at the instance of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Army, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen are involved in the racket and all of them would be rounded up.
The network, according to these officials, came to light when Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), guarding the Indian international borders with Nepal in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh spotted mysterious activities of the local youths and detained them. Their revelations during sustained questioning made it clear that they were part of a hawala ring engaged in the passage of funds to the militants in Kashmir. A number of them had already made multiple trips to Jammu and Kashmir.
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The ISI operatives, the Pakistani Army and some militant commanders are now known to have deposited cash in different bank accounts of certain Nepal-based traders including jewellers and shopping mall owners. The Nepal businessmen through their couriers have been engaging youths in the villages of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, bordering Nepal, and passing to them cash between Rs 2-5 lakh in the Indian currency. These youths of normal criminal background would pass on the money to the militants in J&K against a fixed commission.
Efforts are said to be underway to gain access to the Indian security and investigating agencies to the Nepal-based businessperson and other functionaries of the terror-funding network with the involvement of the Union Ministry of External Affairs. Most of the identified traders, according to sources, were not linked to militancy but have been indulging in hawala trade for the sake of making easy money.
The dramatic arrest of Hidayatullah Malik of Shopian, the founder-chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad front and the Lashkar-e-Mustafa (LeM) has led to the arrest of at least five of his alleged associates. One among them is Javaid Alam Ansari who was arrested from his house at Deobahuara village of Chapra and was brought to Jammu on 20 February on transit remand for sustained interrogation.