Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 20: Jammu Police today arrested five Kashmiri suspects along with Foreign Currency Notes (FCN) on the basis of “very credible inputs” given by a Central Intelligence agency and handed over them to Enforcement Directorate for sustained questioning and investigations into suspected foreign links of the Kashmir based militant outfits.
Reliable sources told the Excelsior that a joint team of Special Operations Group (SOG) Jammu and City police carried out raids on a City hotel today on the basis of specific information provided by a Central agency about movement of five Kashmiri suspects from New Delhi to Jammu on way to Kashmir along with Venezuelan currency amounting about Rs 3 lakh in Indian market along with a cheque of Rs 3.3 lakh.
Within hours of the arrest of Kashmiri suspects along with foreign currency, running into lakhs, police handed over all the accused to Enforcement Directorate to ascertain foreign links of the suspects as they were in possession of currency of a Latin American country, which couldn’t have reached easily in New Delhi, from where it was being taken to the Kashmir Valley via Jammu when the sleuths of SOG Jammu and City police nabbed all five suspects.
Sources identified arrested Kashmiri suspects as Javed Ahmed son of Feroz Din, Ghulam Rasool Malik son of Abdul Rehman Malik, Mohammad Shafi son of Mohammad Yaqoob, Billal Ahmed son of Abdul Ahad and Mohammad Sadiq son of Ghulam Din, all residents of district Baramulla in the Kashmir Valley.
They had taken shelter in a lodge in the City after reaching here from New Delhi and were about to embark on their remaining journey to Kashmir in the next few hours when they were nabbed by a joint team of the SOG Jammu and City Police, which had been passed on information about movement of the Kashmiri youth.
As the SOG and police personnel recovered Rs 47,000 worth Venezuelan currency from the possession of five Kashmiri suspects, which had value of about Rs 3 lakh in the Indian market, they sounded the Intelligence agency and finally all Kashmiri youths along with the Foreign Currency Notes were handed over to the Enforcement Directorate officials for sustained questioning to ascertain their links in the foreign countries or within the country from whom they got Venezuelan currency, which is rarely available here in view of negligible arrival of Venezuelan tourists in India.
Sources disclosed that the Enforcement Directorate was trying to ascertain the source of Foreign Currency from the Kashmiri suspects as involvement of the arrested persons can’t be ruled out in the “undesirable activities”.
“As the information was very credible from a Central Intelligence agency, we are not ruling out anything at this stage including involvement of the arrested accused in militancy or pumping foreign currency into the Valley for militant activities,” sources said but added that everything would be clear once the interrogation of the accused is completed by the Enforcement Directorate and source of the foreign currency is ascertained.
They said there could be some “anti-national elements” in New Delhi, who might have handed over the currency to the Kashmiri youth for exchange it in the banks in the Valley.
Police have also recovered a cheque amount to Rs 3.3 lakh from the possession of two arrested persons including Ghulam Rasool Malik and Javed Ahmad. The cheque dated March 24 pertained to Jammu and Kashmir Bank’s Narwal Fruit Mandi branch.
Details of the cheque were also being ascertained including the person, who had issued it (the cheque) and reasons for the hefty payment, sources said.
Sources said the Foreign Currency in possession of the suspects had been issued by Banco Centeral de Venezuela, the official bank of the Latin American country.
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