Questioning witnesses in SFJ case around FIU report on suspicious transactions, say sources

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 20

As the anti-terror probe agency continued to question “witnesses” from Punjab, officials in the agency said the case against Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) and a few other separatist Khalistani outfits stem out of a suspicious transaction report (STR) compiled by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which was shared with the agency.

The officials, who are privy to the probe, said most of the people (total 50), who are summoned in the case as “witnesses”, have some connection with the STR, which FIU shared with the NIA.

According to the report, there has been some “abnormalities in banking transactions in the past three-four months”, they said.

A senior NIA official said the agency already has in its possession the bank account details of the people called for questioning and so they “are only being asked to explain the purpose for which foreign funds were being sent into their account”.

The money in these accounts range from thousands to lakhs, he said.

The officials contended that so far all of them, who came for deposing before the agency, have been “quite cooperative” and they claimed to have received funds through “legitimate transactions”.

However, the officials in the agency said the fund flow in the accounts held by the people, summoned in the case, is from the same source. The transactions have largely been made from the UK, the US and Canada, but in a few cases it is from Malaysia and the Philippines, they said, adding that coincidentally, the timing of transactions match with the farmers’ protest and the quantum also is quite higher than they were done on earlier occasions.