The police probe in the case pertaining to the training camp held by Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) at Narath, Kannur is now focused on the terror links of some of those involved in the camp and the inflow of large amounts of money from abroad. The NIA, which would soon take over the probe from the police, has already carried out preliminary examinations in the case.
Sources said that the NIA would officially take over the probe in the case within a week. The State Government has written to the Union Home Department explaining the need for the NIA to take over the probe as the training camp could have had connections with people and outfits outside Kerala and even outside the country.
On Friday, State Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said that the probe could extend beyond the borders of India even as a team of NIA from Hyderabad, headed by a Deputy Inspector General, was expected to arrive in Kannur any time to question some of the 21 PFI activists arrested from the camp during an April 23 police raid.
“This case has aspects that the Kerala Police have limitations in inquiring into. There are connections that go beyond the State’s borders. There is said to be involvement of elements outside the country. That is why we referred the case to the (Union) Ministry of Home Affairs (for NIA probe),” Thiruvanchoor said at Kanhangad near Kasaragod.
The focus of the police probe fell on the aspect of foreign funds recently after it was found that funds amounting to Rs80 lakh had been transferred to the bank accounts of one of the 21 accused arrested during the raid at the camp and his relatives by a non-resident Indian in Dubai in a very short period.
The funds, transferred to multiple accounts reportedly through Western Union Money Transfer, were in deposits of Rs100,000. The police suspect that this method was adopted in order to evade the surveillance mounted on huge money transfers by the Union Finance Department’s Intelligence unit.
The police’s finding is that the financial dealings of three participants in the camp with terror connections have to be subjected to special investigations. One of the three is said to be a relative of Riyaz Bhatkal, founder of Indian Mujahiddin and former SIMI operative, presently based in Karachi. The other two men are said to be Qatar-based.
According to sources, this relative of Bhatkal could have transferred funds to those involved in the PFI camp at Narath through a Dubai-based bank. The police had come across documents concerning such transfers during a search at the house of Kamaruddin of Narath, one of the two chief trainers at the camp. Kamaruddin is absconding.
Probe is also on to find out the links between Sarfaraz Nawaz, an Oman-based fund-raiser of the leT who is said to have channeled a major part of the money used in the 2008 Bangalore bombings for which Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani, leT’s South India commander Thadiyantavide Nazeer and several others have been put behind the bars.
In a raid at the training camp held at a building at Narath belonging to a trust linked to the PFI, the police had seized several weapons, two bombs, bomb-making materials, a human dummy used in target-practising, an Iranian identification document and several pamphlets and other articles belonging to the PFI and its political wing SDPI.
The investigators are yet to ascertain the real motive behind holding such a camp, which the PFI says was nothing but a personality development programme. However, the police suspect that the camp was being held for preparing operatives to execute terror strikes in other places of Kerala or the country.
The police have received indications that some of those arrested from the Narath camp had been keeping connections with certain extremist groups in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. All the 21 PFI men arrested from Narath have been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.