Jatinder Singh alias Babu Singh, a former Jammu and Kashmir minister who is a suspect in a hawala transaction case, has reportedly gone absconding. According to authorities, he has been involved in a hawala transaction of Rs 6.90 lakh. Jatinder Singh was a minister in the state in the PDP-Congress coalition government led by Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed and then Ghulam Nabi Azad.
The Jammu & Kashmir Police detained Mohammad Shareef Shah, a resident of Larnoo in Anantnag, on Thursday and confiscated hawala currency worth roughly Rs 7 lakh, exposing Singh to the crime. According to Mukesh Singh, the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), the police had set up various checkpoints throughout Jammu city based on particular information to trap and arrest Babu Singh.
According to the ADGP, Shah said that he was entrusted by Jatinder Singh alias Babu Singh, the head of the Nature-Mankind Friendly Global Party and a former minister in Jammu & Kashmir’s PDP-Congress coalition government, to collect money from a person named Omer in Srinagar. Shareef arrived in Jammu after collecting money from Omer.
S Gurdev Singh of Jammu, Sidhant Sharma of Kathua, and Shrief Sartaj of Jammu were also detained for interrogation. An inquiry has begun after a case was filed.
Shah’s local and international partners include Javed and Khatib from PoK and Farooq Khan from Toronto. Shah also manages a confidential WhatsApp group with people from all around the world, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The cellphone of Babu Singh was switched off and text messages sent received no response.
Babu Singh served as Minister of State for Rural Development, Power, and Finance after being elected to the Kathua Assembly seat for the first time in 2002. He allied with the then-PDP-Congress coalition government, first led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and later Ghulam Nabi Azad. In the 2008 Assembly election, he was beaten by Independent Charanjeet Singh Jasrotia.
Police did not exclude the probability that Babu Singh formed the Nature Mankind Friendly Global Party in order to restructure hawala financing from Pakistan and other countries.
