Kashmir separatists, 26/11 and the Italian job

New Delhi, July 20: The chargesheet that was filed by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a case of money laundering in Kashmir takes us back to an investigation of 2009 in Italy.

In the year 2009, two operatives were arrested in Italy and India never pursued the case with any seriousness despite it being found that these were the men who had moved around money for the 26/11 attack.

Today the Enforcement Directorate has found that there is a connection with the financers of the 26/11 attack in Italy and Firdous Ahmed Shah who is a member of the Hurriyat Conference headed by separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

An amount of Rs 3 crore was received by Ahmed Shah through money that was laundered from various parts of the world including a firm in Italy.

Madina trading in Italy has made several transfers

In the year 2009, the Italian police arrested a father-son duo of Mohammad Yaqub Janjua and Aamer Yaqub Janjua. Hailing from Pakistan, they were involved in financing terror operations for both the Al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. It has now been found that the same modus operandi was also used to finance the separatists in Kashmir.

In connection with the 26/11 the father-son duo had paid off a huge sum of money which was used by the terrorists to make calls through the VoIP. This funding was of huge importance as a lot of money was required to keep in touch right from the days of planning the attack to executing it.

Although India made one bid to question the two operatives in the year 2009, there was no response from Italy, it has been claimed. However India never pursued the case strongly after that.

The same network was also used to fund the separatists. It was found that the Madina Trading at Brescia in Italy had made at least 300 different transactions. Money is said to have reached various accounts which were used to fund both separatist and terrorist activities in India.

Stealing identities

It has been found during this extensive investigation conducted by the Enforcement Directorate that the operatives were making money transfers by stealing identities of various persons.

The ED found that the name of Iqbal cropped several times. However it is believed that the operatives may have stolen Iqbal's identity to carry out the transfers.

The same activity was also found during the 26/11 attack. The account number 8364307716-0 had received money from Italy.

The same money was used to activate the VoIP accounts of the Lashkar. During this transaction, the name of Iqbal had come up.

Iqbal who had a Pakistani passport had approached Madina Trading on some work. However some of the operatives working there decided to steal his identity and wire the money into the accounts of various operatives.

OneIndia News