New Delhi : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued fresh summons to Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah, at present in Delhi, for questioning in connection with a decade-old case of terror financing through ‘hawala channel’.
The summons have been sent at the south Delhi guest house where Shah, the Chairman of Democratic Freedom Party of Jammu and Kashmir, has been kept after Delhi Police detained him on Saturday when he landed here to meet Pakistani leadership in prelude to the now cancelled NSA-level talks, sources said, reports PTI. Shah has been summoned at the Delhi zonal office of the agency here this week, sources said. This is the third attempt by the agency to serve summons on Shah in a August 2005 case where Delhi Police’s Special Cell arrested Mohammed Aslam Wani, an alleged hawala dealer, who had claimed that he had passed on Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.
While the agency had said its earlier summons were not replied by Shah, the Kashmiri leader had in the past told PTI that the case was “politically motivated”. Wani, who is at present out on a bail, has also been summoned by the ED, which registered a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against him and Shah. Wani was arrested allegedly with Rs 63 lakh received through ‘hawala’ channels from the Middle East and a large amount of ammunition on August 26, 2005. During questioning, he had claimed before police that Rs 50 lakh was to be delivered to Shah and Rs 10 lakh to the Jaish-e-Mohammad ‘area commander’ in Srinagar Abu Baqar while the rest of the money was to be his commission.
Wani (35), who hailed from Srinagar, also claimed that he had delivered about Rs 2.25 crore to Shah and his kin in several instalments over the past year.
