Fahad’s truth tests lead to funds trail

In an attempt to find more Al Badr sleeper cells in India, Mohammed Koya alias Fahad, the Pakistani national arrested in Mysore on October 27, has been subjected to three rounds of narco-analysis tests in the last two weeks.

In an attempt to find more Al Badr sleeper cells in India, Mohammed Koya alias Fahad, the Pakistani national arrested in Mysore on October 27, has been subjected to three rounds of narco-analysis tests in the last two weeks.

The hospital-based interrogation of Fahad, which is being closely monitored by the Intelligence Bureau, has thrown up details of people to whom he routed funds since he set up base in Mysore in January. Sources said Fahad had accepted that he was an Al Badr operative and also revealed the details of dozens of people spread across southern India to whom he had

routed funds received in an ICICI bank account at Mysore. Fahad received nearly Rs 12 lakh in the account from links in the US, UAE and Saudi Arabia and he claimed to have disbursed it among people in India for their “day to day activities”, the sources said.

“We are trying to find the extent of the network established by the terrorists especially in the south by tracking down the recipients of funds. Small sums have been given to persons mostly in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu,” an investigator said.

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Police believe Fahad was trying to set up an Al Badr base in south India and are now looking at the extent the recipients of his funds were involved in terrorist activities.

The third round of narco-analysis on the Al Badr operative, conducted on November 23, was necessitated after Fahad revealed during an earlier questioning that some of his associates had smuggled in arms and ammunition across the Nepal border. Questioning in the latest round of the truth serum tests was focused on obtaining information on where these weapons had been sent. Sources said Fahad was not able to provide much information. “He was most forthcoming while talking about the distribution of the funds he received,” sources said. A 1974-make AK-47, a country pistol and some chemicals had been seized following the arrest of Fahad and associate Ali Hussain.

Mysore police Commissioner Praveen Sood said at least one more round of narco-analysis test will have to be done on Fahad. “A lot of information is coming up, that needs to be verified. This investigation is still in the early stages,” he said. Ali Hussain too was subject to a round of narco-analysis test, during which he revealed that he had been asked to help Fahad.

After the arrests in Mysore, police had picked up six others from Mysore, Chennai and Kozhikode for helping the two obtain fake documents.