On Tuesday (December 20), the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorist Squad (UP ATS) arrested a former student of Lucknow’s Nadwatul Ulama from New Delhi’s Nizamuddin railway station. The arrested person has been identified as 37-year-old Mohammed Abdul Awwal. Originally hailing from Assam’s Goalpara, Abdul Awwal has been residing in Delhi since 2018.
The ATS said that for the past five years, accused Abdul Awwal resided in Shram Vihar, Jamia Nagar, Okhla, New Delhi, where he completed his Class 12 under the Madrasa educational system.
The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad is probing foreign fundings received by a Delhi-based NGO as donations for social welfare activities in over 500 ‘suspicious’ bank accounts registered in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Delhi, an official said on Tuesday.
Accused Abdul Awwal was involved in opening accounts in a private bank in the name of illegally migrating Bangladesh and Myanmar citizens in order to obtain funds from a Delhi-based NGO’s FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) accounts. The ATS suspected these funds were used for anti-national activities and terror funding, as about 20 crore was transferred to similar accounts in the four preceding years, the UP ATS said.
As reported earlier, UP ATS had registered an FIR against 10 suspected terrorists on 11th October 2023 naming Adil ur Rahman Ashrafi, Abu Hurairah Ghazi, Sheikh Nazibul Haq, Mohammad Rashid, Kafiluddin, Azeem, Abu Saleh, Abdul Gaffar, Abdullah Ghazi and now-arrested Abdul Awwal. The named accused were booked over allegations of illegally soliciting money from abroad to build mosques in India, settling Rohingya and Bangladeshi citizens in India and carrying out anti-national activities. Most of these conspirators were found to have had links with Darul Uloom of Deoband. The money, which was brought abroad and in many other parts of the country, was routed to Najibul Sheikh, originally a resident of 24 Parganas in West Bengal through hawala. Najibul Sheikh owns a cap and perfume shop near Darul Uloom Deoband in Saharanpur.
During the accused’s interrogation, it was revealed that he met one Abdul Gaffar in Delhi during the Covid outbreak in 2020, when the rules for opening bank accounts were eased. Gaffar and his associates persuaded the accused to open accounts in a private bank in the names of Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas, allowing the former to transfer small sums to each account via FCRA accounts of the NGO ‘Sun Shine Health and Social Welfare Trust,’ which received funds from European countries.
Gaffar deposited funds to these bank accounts, and the accused, in collusion with the former, withdrew all of them and allocated them equally. Gaffar, according to the accused, did similar things to numerous other bank accounts opened by persons in his network. While Gaffar is yet to be arrested, efforts are on to nab him.
“The modus operandi to bring funds from abroad clearly suggested that the nexus was involved in using this money for anti-national activities by violating FCRA norms. “The ATS sleuths are carefully scanning the details of all these bank accounts, and further investigation is underway,” underlined a top ATS official.
