Naxals pumping extortion money into real estate, claims NIA

The Naxals are investing the extorted money into the real estate business, the NIA has claimed in its report.

NEW DELHI: A separate wing set up under the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to probe funding of Naxals has claimed that the money extorted by these home-grown rebels are being pumped into real estate companies.

The report further states that the Naxals are investing the extortion money into the real estate firms through their trusted agents who have been former cadres. 

These real estate agents invest money into their business and return it to the Maoist when needed.

In its report, the special wing of the NIA claimed that the extorted money is also being used for the higher education of the children of top Naxal leaders.

It may be recalled that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had recently formed a dedicated wing to check the funding of Naxals, which is said to be over Rs 125 crore.

The NIA report, accessed exclusively by Zee News, has revealed that the Naxals groups have been extorting money from individuals as well as business houses.

Their main source of funding is extortion from the tendu patta (leave) contractors and levy from businessmen and corporate houses.

A case registered by Jharkhand Police in November 2016 and, later by NIA this year, had revealed the modus operandi of the Naxals. 

According to the NIA report, the extorted money is first deposited in bank accounts of some bogus shell companies and, from there, it is transferred to bank accounts of family members of the Naxal leaders.

The NIA investigation into the killing of former Jharkhand MLA Ramesh Singh Munda revealed that the Naxalites, who were involved in the crime, also looted a cash van in 2008 and decamped with Rs 5 crore in cash and gold.

The Naxals collected Rs 5 crore for killing Ramesh Singh from his rival and distributed Rs 22 Lakhs to different platoons towards their monthly expenditure.

They also purchased one vehicle for their group from the money. 

In one such case, it came to light that the members of Tritiya Prastuti State Committee (TSPC) - a Maoist splinter group - used to extort money from big Coal traders. 

TSPC reportedly charged Rs 40 per ton of coal production, which is collected through committee operatives or directly by the conduit of the power company.

This money is primarily used by TPSC leaders for investment into the real estate business.

The Naxals also used middlemen to collect money in some cases, which was evident after the seizure of money from CPI-M (Maoist) which revealed that Naxal leaders from Jharkhand Sudhakar and Madhvi used contractors as middlemen for sending the extorted money to their families which reside in Hyderabad.

It is suspected that the Maoists had concealed the extorted money and explosives in the forest areas of Parasnath Hills and Lalu Pahad of Jharkhand.

It has been also revealed that a major chunk of this money is being transferred to top leaders in the Naxal hierarchy and a small portion is spent on prisoners.

A portion of this money was used for purchasing explosives, walkie-talkies and uniforms for Naxal cadres.

The Home Ministry recently gave its approval for setting up the dedicated wing in the NIA in view of the agency's extensive terror funding probe against Kashmiri separatists which led to several arrest of the Hurriyat leaders and others, including the son of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and the son-in-law of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

This year in February, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached properties worth Rs 86 Lakhs of a Jharkhand-based Naxal commander Sandeep Yadav.