Sunday 31 May 2009

IM's Amir Reza and Riya set up shop in Dubai

By U Sudhakar Reddy
Terror groups are using business firms abroad to legalise money flow to their operatives in the country.
Apart from hawala transactions, they are nowadays using legitimate money transfer agencies also to ship funds.
Investigations by sleuths of the counter intelligence wing and Octopus found that terror operatives such as Amir Reza and Riyaz Bhatkal of Indian Mujahideen owned business establishments in Dubai and used them to pump in money.
Reza was the mastermind behind the formation of Indian Mujahiddeen and Bhatkal was involved in twin blasts in the city.
The confession of Mohammed Sadiq Sheik of Mumbai, who was brought here by Octopus, also revealed that IM operatives were involved in business operations.
Sadiq Sheik told the police that Bhatkal and Reza were running a big electronics shop and distribution firm in Dubai.
“I worked a short while for the company,” he said.
“Reza got the license in the name of one Yahiya and the company was named Yahiya Electronics. It was located near Rotana Hotel in Sharjah. Bhatkal was in Dubai and monitored its establishment.” He added that when he returned to India to take up blast operations he received funds through official money transfer agencies.
“They used to receive money for each and every plan including Mumbai train blasts, Hyderabad twin blasts and other terror incidents,” said a senior investigating official. “Bhatkal used to get funds from Saudi Arabia also. Lashkar-eTayyabba was behind entire operations of Indian Mujahideen and they were dealing with all financial transactions.” “There is an urgent need to block the flow of funds to terror outfits through formal channels such as companies and stock market and informal channels such as hawala,” said Mr B. Raman, a counter terrorism expert and former Research and Analysis Wing official.

No comments: