Palwal mosque, flight enquiry and Lashkar-e-Taiba's funding web: How NIA nailed terror head

Sometime in October last year, a report about a nondescript mosque located in Haryana’s Palwal created flutter as the National Investigation Agency claimed that it was built by Rs 70 lakh sent by the terror outfit based in Pakistan. Now, almost six months later, the NIA got a major success in the case after it was able to identify Lashkar’s key terror funding head. According to a report by the Hindustan Times, a simple flight enquiry helped the probe agency in identifying Mohammad Kamran, the Dubai-based Lashkar commander, who reportedly oversees the funding operations in India.

The report says that Kamran had made an enquiry on the Emirates Airlines’ IVR system from Dubai for a flight booking. The NIA then reached out to the airlines to get the record of Kamran’s voice sample that would prove his links with top Lashkar terrorists. After getting the record from Emirates’ automated system, the NIA matched Kamran’s voice sample with the telephonic conversation that it had recovered in a CD from Arif Ghulambashir Dharampuria, Kamrans Gujarat-based associated. The NIA says that experts have confirmed that the voice in the CD and in the IVR record is indeed of Kamran.

The absconding Lashkar commander is part of the bigger funding web, in which Dharampuria and Abdul Aziz Behlim worked with him in Dubai. In India, Delhi-based Mohammad Salman and Rajasthan-based Mohammad Salim were being tasked to created sleeper cells. It was Mohammad Salman, who had got the Khulafa-e-Rashideen masjid built. Located in Palwal’s Uttawar village, Salman was the Imam of the mosque. Mohammed Salman and two of his associates were arrested by the NIA on October 3 last year. 

Recently, the National Investigation Agency had stumbled upon a terror plot of Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa in India that was pumping money to build a cadre base in India under the garb of charity.

Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), an arm of JuD, has been providing financial assistance to poor families for marriage of girls and building houses, said sources. "They are building cadre eventually to recruit vulnerable youth," said a senior officer in the agency.