The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday attached assets of Aijaz Hussain Khawaja, a national award-winning artisan and also a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist for his involvement in a terror funding case of 2006.
According to the reports, the Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 7.32 lakh of Aijaz Hussain Khawaja, who is a convicted Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist. In 2003, Khawaja was one of the 44 winners of the President’s National Awards for artisans and handicrafts.
In 2006, the special cell of Delhi police had arrested Aijaz Hussain Khawaja with one bag containing 2.05 Kg RDX and Rs 49 lakh in cash. He was later convicted with a sentence of imprisonment for a period of seven years under section 5(b) of Explosive Substances Act, 1908 along with Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
Aijaz Hussain Khawaja’s business was a hawala front
The Delhi Police investigations had revealed that Khawaja’s business was just a front, and he was an active hawala operator for a terrorist network. The Delhi Police had claimed that he laundered approximately Rs 3 crore to terror modules active in Kashmir valley.
Following the Delhi Police’s FIR and charge-sheet, the ED had conducted an investigation pertaining to the charges of money-laundering. “As a hawala operator, he was in touch with Muktiar Ahmed Bhatt, a Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who was in touch with the Inter-Services Intelligence. Khawaja used to undertake hawala transactions for separatists and militant activities,” said the ED in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The ED accused Khawaja of taking a commission for his hawala activities and generate income from the crime worth Rs 8.50 lakhs. In 2012, the Delhi High Court had upheld the conviction of trial court but Khawaja was set free on the claim that he had already served five years and five months of imprisonment.