Lucknow: The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh on Monday arrested a West Bengal resident accused of getting foreign funds worth Rs 58 crore in the name of two trusts and misusing them to carry out anti-national activities. The arrest was made from Lucknow’s Manaknagar area.
“Abu Saleh Mandal, 50, a resident of 24 Parganas district in West Bengal and on whom a reward of Rs 50,000 was declared by the ATS, was arrested from Manaknagar area of Lucknow,” said DG, law and order, Prashant Kumar.
Kumar said that the ATS had intelligence of a syndicate that got illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries settled in India by procuring fake documents on their behalf and made them promote anti-national activities here.
“Cases under relevant IPC sections, section 14 of The Foreigners Act, 1946 and sections 12(1) and 12(2) of The Passport Act, 1967 have been registered against Abu Saleh,” he said. Three arrests had already been made between October and December from Assam, West Bengal and Bangladesh in connection with the case, the officer added.
Additional DG, ATS, Mohit Agarwal, said that during his interrogation, Abu Saleh reportedly claimed to be the director of trusts Kabir Bagh Millat Academy and Haroa-al Jamiatul Islamia Darul Uloom Madrasa. “The FCRA accounts [through which foreign funding can be received] of these trusts showed they had received a sum of around Rs 58 crore (from UK-based Ummah Welfare Trust) between 2018 and 2022,” he added.
Another ATS officer privy to the probe added that Ummah Welfare Trust had its accounts with Barclays and HSBC but were closed due to its activities in the UK. The charity has worked with Interpal, a Palestinian aid charity which has been designated as a terrorist entity by the US Treasury.
Agarwal stated that a large part of the funding was obtained in the form of cash through false billings. Also, fake firms, named Ghazi Foods Supply and Ghazi Masonries, were used to get the funds. Besides, some money was also received through Hawala. Along with Rs 1.16 lakh in cash, two mobile phones and two Aadhaar cards were also recovered from Abu Saleh’s possession, he added.
