Mumbai: The Maharashtra ATS on Wednesday claimed
that the hawala money used for the 13/7 serial blasts case in
the city was routed through the UAE.
"The hawala money utilised to engineer the triple blasts
was routed through UAE. We have all the details as to how the
money was channelised via UAE and who sponsored it," an ATS
official said on condition of anonymity.
On Monday, the state ATS had claimed a breakthrough in
the probe with the arrest of two suspected Indian Mujahideen
(IM) operatives Naqi Ahmed Wasi Ahmed Sheikh and Nadeem Akhtar
Ashfaq Sheikh, originally from Bihar`s Darbhanga district.
Investigators also claimed that with the arrest of Haroon
Rashid Naik, currently in jail in a fake currency case, they
stumbled upon the money trail in the blasts and zeroed in on
IM as the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, talking about the recovery of two Unicorn make
motorcycles, allegedly stolen by Naqi and Nadeem from Dongri
and VP Road areas here last August and October for future use,
state ATS chief Rakesh Maria said the two vehicles were
transported to Bihar by a train using fake documents.
During the probe, ATS had confiscated the two motorcycles
from Bihar, while the vehicles were being used by the
relatives of Naqi and Ahmed.
"Naqi and Ahmed had already possessed two Unicorn
motorcycles, which they used for a few weeks before selling
them off in Mumbai. However, the two had kept the photocopies
of these vehicles` documents after selling them," Maria said.
"The plate numbers of these two stolen motorcycles were
replaced by the numbers of those vehicles which they had
bought and sold. Then they submitted photocopies of their
previously owned vehicles to the railway authorities at the
time of verification, while transporting the stolen vehicles
to Bihar," he added.
Meanwhile, one more person has been arrested in a SIM
card racket case, taking the total number of arrests in the
case to nine.
Shivkumar Mensirou (23), a car driver by profession, was
arrested from the city yesterday and remanded in police
custody till February 2, police said.
Around 2,200 mobile connection applications and over
10,000 photocopies of these documents were recovered from him,
they said.
Naqi and Nadeem were among the eight persons arrested in
the SIM card racket case before being nailed in the blasts
case, police said.
Maria said Mensirou used to take original documents from
various people introducing them to a new scheme where the
customer would get a SIM card for merely Rs 30 with a talktime
worth Rs 40.
"After collecting the original documents, the accused
provided the SIM cards to the customers. He then took out 10
to 15 photocopies of each original document," he added.
Then he used to hand over these photocopies to the agents
of various telecom companies for which he would be paid Rs
three per copy, he added.
On these bogus documents companies provide mobile
connections, Maria said, adding that some of these SIM cards
procured fraudulently were used by the perpetrators of last
year`s serial blasts in Mumbai that claimed 27 lives.
"The telecom companies` agents have also under scanner in
this SIM cards racket case," Maria said.
PTI
