UP ATS probes money trail of terror suspects

Lucknow, July 19 The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has started an investigation into the money trail followed by the alleged militants who were arrested a week ago in Lucknow.

A sum of Rs 2 crore from Gulf nations had been received by Islamic Dawah Center (IDC) run by the prime accused, Umar Gautam and Mufti Kazi Jahangir Qasmi.

ATS officials said the alleged accused will be confronted on the financial transactions.

The hefty amount had been received by IDC as donations and used for conversions, the officials said.

IG ATS Gajendra Kumar Goswami said that the trio operated a big conversion racket in Maharashtra at the behest of Gautam.

"We conducted an operation in Maharashtra in a very amicable manner and arrested Rameshwar Kawre a.k.a Adam, Kausar Alam, and Bhuriya Bando a.k.a. Arslan Mustafa. During questioning of the trio, it surfaced that every year, they conducted 'revert get-togethers'," said the ATS chief.

"Those arrested believe that there is only one religion in the world which is Islam and those who converted or embraced Islam from different faiths had in fact reverted to their original religion," said Goswami.

The officer also said that no audit of accounts of IDC had been done since it came into existence in 2010.

"We will scrutinise and check the bank accounts and transactions," he added.