Railways clerk forged bills, helped fund ISIS module, finds NIA probe

During investigation, bank details of the three alleged ISIS operatives and their associates were scanned leading to the detection of a common pattern, said an intelligence officer who did not want to be named. “While scanning their accounts, they found a common source from which money was regularly coming to their accounts. After further investigation and questioning of the arrested persons, it emerged that a man who lived in Noida and worked as a clerk in the financial department of the Northern Railways was in constant touch with the operatives. It was found that they had allegedly radicalised him,” the officer said.

The clerk is currently absconding and multiple agencies are searching for him.

Although a clear picture of his modus operandi will emerge only after his detention, a source said the Railways clerk had filed several forged medical bills and put the account numbers of alleged ISIS operatives into which the money would be deposited.

“The Northern Railways was informed about this and they have filed a complaint with Delhi Police at Parliament Street Police Station, alleging an internal fraud and seeking an FIR against the clerk. But they did not mention anything about his nexus with the alleged ISIS terrorists,” the source said.

All the 15 arrested ISIS operatives are from Thane district of Maharashtra. The NIA claimed that the module was headed by Saquib Nachan, 63, the main accused. According to the NIA, Nachan administered the oath of allegiance to the youth joining the terror organisation. The module, it claimed, was planning to carry out terror activities across the country.

“The investigations have revealed that the accused, all members of ISIS Maharashtra module, were operating from Padgha-Borivali, where they had hatched the conspiracy to spread terror and carry out acts of violence across India. Pursuing the path of violent jihad, Khilafat, ISIS etc, the accused had aimed to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country and wage a war against the Government of India,” the NIA said in a statement.

Nachan had been under the radar of the security agencies since the 1990s. He was booked in more than a dozen terror cases and convicted twice. In 1997, the Supreme Court convicted him of planning terror attacks in the early 1990s along with Khalistani terrorists. He was also booked in the 2002-03 blasts in Mumbai, and convicted in 2016 again for 10 years by a Mumbai court under the Arms Act. He served both the sentences and was released in 2017.

Earlier, his son Shamil Nachan was arrested by the NIA in the Maharashtra ISIS module related terror case.