The Enforcement Directorate while investigating into illegal hawala deals in Kolkata has bumped into transactions that have terror links, sources said.
ED sleuths who conducted a series of raids throughout Kolkata a few days ago have reportedly found strong terror links of the hawala deals prompting the National Investigating Agency to jump into the case. The NIA will soon take up the matter for finding out its terror angle, sources said.
According to officials the cash collected from Kolkata and perhaps other parts of Bengal were routed to countries like Singapore, Dubai, Bangladesh and Nepal from where they were sent to the various terror outfits for carrying out militant activities in India, sources said adding about Rs 1,000 crore have been siphoned out of Kolkata through hawala route.
A part of the hawala money had gone into the hands of dreaded terror outfits like Jamaat Mujahideen Bangladesh, sources said adding other terror outfits have also received money from such transactions.
The hawala money was being transferred out of Kolkata for the past six months or so, sources maintained adding whether more money was sent before that period was being looked into.
The Tuesday’s report came in the wake of Bongaon sessions court awarding death penalty to a Lashkar e Toiba terrorist Sk Naeem a resident of Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Naeem was arrested by the BSF at the Bangladesh border in 2007 along with three accomplices. He was involved in a train blast in Mumbai.
That parts of Bengal were being used by the terror outfits like JMB came to light way back on October 2, 2014 when a blast killed two militants who were manufacturing explosive devices at a house at Khagragarh in Burdwan district.
Subsequent investigations conducted by the NIA into the case took the lid off an elaborate terror network that was active in border districts of Nadia, Birbhum, Malda and North 24 Parganas. A number of undercover JMB militants and moles were arrested then. The JMB militants were working on a plot to assassinate some key leaders in Bangladesh, it was alleged.
