NIA Arrests Fourth Accused from Delhi in LeT Covert Ops Case

Alam is the fourth accused person arrested in the LeT covert activities case.

Image used for representational purposes only.

(Photo: Poonam Agarwal/The Quint)

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested Mahfooz Alam on Sunday, 4 February from Delhi, while continuing its probe into the covert activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Alam is a resident of Gopalganj, Bihar.

Alam was arrested from Delhi and produced on Sunday before the NIA Special Court which has remanded him to police custody for two days.

Alam is the fourth accused arrested in this case. The other three accused arrested in the case are Shaikh Abdul Naeem alias Sohel Khan, resident of Aurangabad, in Maharashtra, Dhannu Raja alias Bablu, resident of Gopalganj and Touseef Ahmed Malik resident of Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir.

Mahfooz Alam had facilitated and provided logistic, financial support and shelter to the co-accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem, who is an active cadre of LeT, a proscribed terrorist organisation and had visited and established bases in Bihar, Odisha, UP and Jammu and Kashmir on the advice of his handler Abdul alias Rehan (LeT commander in Pakistan). 

Mahfooz had also facilitated raising, receiving and collecting funds by the co-accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem through International Money Transfer Services such as Western Union Money Transfer by providing his identity documents. These funds were to be later used for carrying out the terrorist activities by Shaikh Abdul Nayeem.

Alam's interrogation led to raids by the NIA at various places in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar on two Hawala operators Dinesh Garg and Adesh Kumar Jain, an NIA spokesperson said.

In this very case, searches have been conducted at four different locations in Muzaffarnagar, UP including residences and shops of two suspected Hawala operators. During the search of the shop and residence of Dinesh Garg alias Ankit, son of Narayan Dass Gupta, resident of Muzaffarnagar.

The NIA team seized cash around Rs 15 Lakh, two currency note counting machine, one Indian made pistol with ammunition, one laptop, four mobile phones and documents.  

The recoveries made from residence and shop of another suspected Hawala dealer Adesh Kumar Jain, resident of Muzaffarnagar included cash worth Rs 32.84 Lakhs, one Chinese made Pistol with ammunition, some documents containing mobile numbers of associates, currency notes of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, USA, Japan, Thailand, Oman, and electronic devices including two laptops and three mobile phones.

The names of these two hawala operators had surfaced in the chain of terror financing channel of the LeT module that is being investigated by NIA.

The case started after the arrest of Shaikh from Lucknow in November last year and during investigation it was found that he had spent some time in trouble-torn south Kashmir and taken pictures of some Army installations, officials said.

The central security agencies, which interrogated Shaikh at length, had told the investigators about his accomplice, Tauseef Ahmed Malik, in Pulwama district of south Kashmir. He was placed under arrest by the NIA on 9 December.

During interrogation, Shaikh disclosed that he had stayed in Pulwama, moved to various places with the help of Malik and even photographed some Army and para-military camps, the officials claimed.

Shaikh, who was wanted in connection with a 2014 terror case and had been on the run, told investigators that some important power projects and railway tracks in the valley were surveyed, they said.

He had also visited some places in Himachal Pradesh, especially Kasol, which is frequented by Israeli nationals visiting India, according to the officials.

Security agencies have claimed that Shaikh was roped in for a recce mission similar to that undertaken by David Headley, a Pakistan-American, who is at present serving a prison sentence of 35 years at a US jail for his involvement in terror activities and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks of 2008.

(With inputs from PTI)