CASH FOR BLOOD : Money made terror speak

Mateen Hafeez I TNN
Mumbai: A hawala transaction spanning Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and India led the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to suspect and later establish the Pakistani connection in the blasts that killed 188 people on Mumbai’s trains on July 11.

The hawala money, the police believe, was used to fund the bombings. The prime accused, Faisal Shaikh, received Rs 60 lakh over the last five years through hawala, officials said.

Faisal, a class-XII drop-out who resided in the Mira Road area on the outskirts of Mumbai, is believed to be the western India commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). He was arrested along with software engineer brother Muzammil Shaikh. Faisal told the police that he had an “export-import’’ business but crime branch officials, who picked him up, said the “small business’’ was only a front for routing hawala money for terror causes. “We now know that he received hawala-routed money to recruit youth and send them for terror training,’’ an officer, who questioned Faisal, said.

The police is likely to issue a red-corner notice against Rizwan Dawre, an Indian now based in Saudi Arabia and working with a multi-national company there. Dawre is supposed to have routed money, sent by Pakistan-based terror mastermind Azeem Cheema, to Faisal in Mumbai.

The ATS in August claimed to have seized 37,000 riyals (Rs 4.81 lakh) from Faisal’s residence. “We have evidence that this money was routed from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and then to India for use in anti-national acitivities,’’ ATS chief Krish Pal Raghuvanshi had said.

Interrogators had also said Faisal, in charge of sending new recruits to Pakistan, would receive around Rs 10 lakh-Rs 12 lakh a year.

Officials said Cheema would send money whenever new recruits would get ready to fly abroad for training. The crime branch had also questioned Faisal’s cousin, Shahida Shaikh (50), a headmistress with a school in Mumbai, in connection with the hawala money. Officials alleged Shahida had received money on behalf of Faisal but later gave her a clean chit. Investigators also said that Faisal would also pay the mobile bills of new recruits and arrange air tickets and visas for visits to the terror camp in Bhawalpur. Faisal himself visited Pakistan twice in 2004 and 2005 for training and stayed there for six months each time.

Officers also said Pune resident Sohail Shaikh, arrested on July 25, revealed he was given the job to find out names, addresses and current postings of hundreds of policemen who were deployed during the Gujarat riots but did not stop them.

The Times of India, October 1, 2006