ISI funding terror in Valley via Nepal: Intel

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

Finding it difficult to send money directly to Jammu & Kashmir due to strict security measures taken by Indian agencies, the Pakistan’s ISI has now started using its Nepal-based modules for the purpose, said intelligence officials in a report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Officials said the ISI was believed to have activated its modules along the Indo-Nepal border in UP and Bihar to use their “Indian contacts” to send money to terror operatives in J&K. The ISI paid monthly subsistence amount to its cadre active in the Valley, the officials said.

The report said: “Businessmen in Nepal, who have close trading ties with people in Bihar and UP, hand over cash to them. The money is then given to local youth in lieu of commission for carrying it to J&K. This way, the money reaches the Valley, leaving no trace of any e-transaction due to which agencies fail to track it.”

The security agencies recently found some evidence when the Bihar ATS arrested a local youth following a tip-off by the J&K police. The youth allegedly carried cash and seven pistols and handed these over to a Kashmiri youth, who he had met in Aligarh.

The youth from Kashmir was earlier arrested after it emerged that he had given guns to a terrorist, identified as Hidayatullah Malik. The latter was arrested on February 6 from Kunjwani in Jammu.

The intelligence report, however, contended that youths from border districts of UP and Bihar were at times unknowingly get into the trap of becoming cash couriers. “In each such transaction, an average of Rs 3 lakh is transferred to terror operatives in Kashmir by these unsuspecting youths,” the report said.

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