The Hindu : National : Terror links of couple held in fake currency racket being probed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 11, 2007
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Terror links of couple held in fake currency racket being probed

Special Correspondent

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police and the intelligence agencies are probing the role of a couple involved in a fake currency racket in allegedly funding terrorist activities in the State, including the November 23 serial bomb blasts in Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad. The racket was busted in Aligarh on December 6.

Mohammad Liaquat Ali and his wife Shakila Bano were arrested by the West Bengal police from their village in Malda district on December 8. The village is barely 10 km from the Bangadesh border. Their arrest followed a tip-off from the Aligarh police, which found that the husband-wife duo operated two separate accounts in Axis Bank, Malda Town in which the money was deposited online from Aligarh and other places. Liaquat Ali and his wife are being sent to Aligarh. Aligarh SSP Raghubir Lal confirmed that they were on their way. “On busting the racket a four-member crack police team, including a lady sub-inspector, was despatched to Malda Town to bring them to Aligarh,” said Mr. Lal over the phone. Though the SSP declined to confirm the duo’s involvement in funding terror acts, he said “they were definitely the prime accused in the fake currency racket.”

In what turned out to be the tip of the iceberg, the police last month nabbed Avinash and Surendra in Sakinan Basauli under the Gonda police station area in Aligarh district and found in their possession around Rs. 1.25 lakh in fake currency and 14 pistols. In fact, interrogation revealed that huge quantity of fake currency was dumped in Uttar Pradesh through agents belonging to terror outfits for funding terrorist activities in the State. The fake currency provided the economic backbone of terror groups.

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