Part of funding for 9/11 came from India: former top cop

New Delhi, November 17

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Part of funding for 9/11 attacks in the US came from India, a former high-ranking police officer has claimed in a book.

Neeraj Kumar, whose book ‘Dial D for Don’ will soon be released, claims the revelation was made by a terrorist. Kumar, a retired Commissioner of Delhi Police who has also served tenure with the Central Bureau of Investigations, claimed funds were raised from a kidnapping and given to Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a who coordinated the 9/11 attack by al-Qaeda, by Omar Sheikh, a militant with links to several terrorist outfits who was released by India in exchange of hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.

Sheikh was given the money by another militant, Aftab Ansari,” says the 1976-batch IPS officer, citing information obtained from Harkat-ul Mujahideen militant Asif Raza Khan.

He claimed Asif Raza said his "boss Aftab Ansari had shared the ransom money collected in the kidnapping of Partha Pratim Roy Burman, chairman–cum–managing director of Khadim Shoes with Omar Sheikh". Ansari has been found guilty of orchestrating an attack on the American Center in Kolkata in which one security guard was killed and some 20 people were injured in 2002. He is currently awaiting death by hanging in a jail in West Bengal.

"Part of the ransom money received in the Burman kidnapping — about USD 100,000 (Rs 49 lakh at that time)— had later found its way to Mohammad Atta, the chief of the 9/11 attackers," Kumar claims in the book.

Kumar, who now heads the anti-corruption wing of BCCI, said the revelation found a mention in the testimony of John S Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director, Counter terrorism Division of FBI, before the Senate Committee on Terrorist Financing in July 2003 at Washington.

His book that centres primarily on underworld activities after the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai recounts spine-chilling tales of conspiracy and bureaucratic wrangling.

"It's only an attempt to share my story, my experiences and some of my cases which have no bearing on national security," he says.

H/e also recounts his telephonic conversations with India's most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. Particularly significant was a call he received at the very end of his career while he was investigating spot fixing allegations in the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League.           

"It was either Dawood or his brother Anees who told me that I should stop chasing them as I was about to retire," remembers Kumar with a smile on his face. — PTI