The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today arrested three persons formally in connection with a money laundering case in Kashmir. Hurriyat leader Mohammad Akbar Bhat, Fatima Shah and Sabzaar Ahmad Sheikh have been already in jail under the provisions of the PMLA since their arrest more than five years ago by the State Investigation Agency (SIA).

They have been accused of being involved in selling MBBS seats in Pakistan and funding terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir, an official said. The accused, according to the ED, had been involved in terror financing and were hand in glove with Pakistani handlers. The ED has identified the handlers from across the border as Manzoor Ahmad Shah and Altaf Ahmad Bhat who arranged admissions in the MBBS and other courses in the colleges of Pakistan for J&K students.

An ED spokesperson said the accused have been remanded to the ED’s custody till February 20 by the court of Special Judge, Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBI-Cases), Srinagar. In May 2022, the special NIA court in Srinagar had framed charges against Bhat, who is the chairman of the Hurriyat conference ‘Salvation Movement’, and seven others for selling Pakistani MBBS seats to fund terror activities.

The SIA had on July 27, 2020, registered the case against the “unscrupulous persons” who were hand in glove with some educational consultancies for arranging admission of residents of J&K in MBBS and other professional courses in colleges, institutions and universities in Pakistan. “The ED had initiated the money laundering investigation on the basis of the FIR registered by the J&K Police for offences under various sections of the Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against Bhat, Shah, Sheikh, Qazi Yasir, Syed Khalid Geelani alias Khalid Andrabi and others involved in terrorist activity in J&K,” the spokesperson said.

The ED said the arrested persons had received money in their personal accounts and in the bank accounts of the Al-Jabar Trust. The Al-Jabar Trust, the agency said was a charitable trust but it was being used for receiving funds from students, which were further being ploughed into terrorist activities in India in various ways, such as giving money to stone pelters, providing money to persons or terrorists based in J&K, according to the instructions of the Pakistani handlers. Earlier, the ED had provisionally attached properties worth Rs 5 crore under the provisions of the PMLA in the form of various bank accounts and immovable properties.

Courtesy: The Tribune India: 15th Feb , 2024