JAMMU, Oct 24: The recent escape by three Pak militants from the high security prison at Kot Bhalwal here has taken the lid off the flow of funds from abroad to foreign mercenaries even during their detention in various jails of Jammu and Kashmir State.Sources said Mohammad Irfan - one of the three escapees, had received a bank draft of about Rs 62,000 when he was lodged in the Central Jail at Jammu about five months ago. The draft was sent by someone from Saudi Arabia, sources added.Significantly, Irfan managed to get an account opened in a nationalised bank branch in the city and got the draft deposited there. Not only this, he even operated the bank account and withdrew money from time to time during the period he remained in the jail, a senior police official disclosed.However, no one bothered to check the antecedents of the person who had sent the draft from abroad to a Pak militant arrested in connection with a bomb explosion during the Republic Day Parade at M A Stadium on January 26, 1995, inwhich eight people were killed and six others injured.The jail officials said there was nothing unusual in the opening of a bank account by Irfan as per the provisions of the Jail Manual. The Jail Manual allows for maintaining the prisoners' property under a separate head ``PP'', a senior jail official added.As such, whenever a prisoner gets money from an outsider, the Superintendent of the Jail concerned gets a bank account opened in the name of the detenu after verifying his signatures. However, the jail officials maintain record of the bank account of the detenus by making entries of each and every transaction into a separate register, he added.The money is sent to a detenu for his clothes, additional food, and other requirements of daily use, besides defending his cases in court. However, the money is paid by the detenu for every transaction through the jail officials against a receipt.However, in the instant case, sources said Irfan was not only a foreigner, but was arrested on charge ofwaging a war against India. As such, there was every possibility of his diverting the money received from abroad to fund other channels of militancy in the state, sources said and added that a huge amount appears to have exchanged hands in facilitating his escape along with two militants from the high security Kot Bhalwal prison.Initially, he was lodged in the Central Jail at Jammu and from there, he was shifted to the Kot Bhalwal sub-jail in July last on directions of the Special Judge under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.Police officials continue to be clueless about the whereabouts of the escapees.About the other two Pak militants, Mohammad Saleem and Mohammad Khalid, sources said they were brought to the Kot Bhalwal prison from Kashmir and Rajouri respectively much before the shifting of Irfan there. All the three were, however, were lodged in the same cell from where, they escaped on the intervening night of October 16-17.They were even unable to solve the mysterysurrounding their escape from the high security prison, sources added.
