Key 26/11 conspirator Abu Hamza arrested at IGI airport in Delhi

June 25, 2012

Taj_Mahal

New Delhi, June 25: The Delhi Police has arrested suspected key 26/11 Mumbai attacks plotter Abu Hamza at the Indira Gandhi International airport. Sources say Hamza had arrived in Delhi from the Gulf when he was arrested. Hamza was produced before a court which remanded him to 15-day police custody.

According to reports, Hamza alias Sayeed Zabiuddin alias Zabi Ansari alias Riyasat Ali is a suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorist. He is an Indian national who went to Pakistan for allegedly training people for the 26/11 attacks.

Hamza was arrested after an Intelligence Bureau tip-off. His arrest is being seen as a crucial breakthrough and is likely to strengthen the 26/11 case. The 30-year-old who hails from Georai area of Beed district in Maharashtra, was arrested on June 21 when he arrived in India from a Gulf country, official sources.

With his arrest, the mysterious voice recorded during the conversation between 10 Lashker terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan has been identified, the sources said. Sources say he was in the Karachi control room at the time of attacks in Mumbai. According to the officials associated with the probe, Ansari had told the Lashkar terrorists carrying out attack in Nariman House to convey to the media that the "attack was a trailer and the entire movie was yet to come".

In the intercepted tapes, Ansari was also heard using typical Hindi words like "prashasan" (government) and was directing the terrorists to conceal their Pakistani identity and identify themselves as Deccan Mujahideen hailing from Toli Chowk in Hyderabad.

His presence was also stated by Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the Mumbai attack, in his deposition before a special court. He told the court that one person by the name of Abu Jindal had tutored 10 terrorists on how to speak Hindi.

Hamza was named in the dossier to Pakistan as India's most wanted. There was also an Interpol notice against him in 2009. Hamza is also alleged to have a hand in the IISC Bangalore attack in 2005.

Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Coleman Headley also named Hamza as the Lashkar's India expert.

Missing since 2005, Ansari, who had undergone training at Indian Technical Institute in Beed, had a sudden rise in the ranks of Lashker-e-Taiba after he was indoctrinate by banned SIMI post Gujarat riots in 2002.

The Central security agencies had quizzed many arrested terrorists to study the case of Ansari during which it came to light that he had been operating out of terror camps in Karachi and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and was a key figure in the terror group's plan to carry out the strikes in the country's hinterland.

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News Network
March 27,2024

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The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan, her IT company and some others to probe a case of alleged illegal payments made by a private mineral firm to her and the company, official sources said Wednesday.

The agency has registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is expected to summon the people involved, the sources said.

The ED case has been booked after taking cognisance of a complaint filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), an investigative arm of the Union corporate affairs ministry, they said.

The case stems from an Income Tax Department investigation that alleged that a private company called Cochin Minerals And Rutile Ltd (CMRL), made an illegal payment of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena's company-- Exalogic Solutions-- during 2018 to 2019, even though the IT firm had not provided any service to the company.

The Karnataka High Court had last month dismissed a plea filed by Exalogic Solutions against the probe initiated by the SFIO.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will face Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanand constituency this Lok Sabha election.

Wayanad, a Congress stronghold, has been with the party since 2009. Mr Gandhi won it in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, having lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

His rival this time, Mr Surendran, has the significant task of challenging the Congress-Left binary in Kerala's political landscape. Both the Congress and the Left are in a national alliance though they remain rivals in this southern state.

Surendran has contested all three Lok Sabha elections since 2009 and also four Assembly elections. In 2021, he contested from Konni and Manjeshwar seats simultaneously. 

In 2019 general elections, Mr Surendran finished third in Pathanamthitta constituency behind the Congress and the Left. He had lost the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram by merely 89 votes. He also contested a bypoll in 2019, but lost it as well.

He was appointed to head the BJP Kerala unit in 2020 and became the face of the protests against the entry of young women into Sabarimala years ago.

Mr Surendran, who is from Kozhikode, figured in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also named actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to see a battle of titans after Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face the three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The BJP has also fielded former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University K S Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will contest from Alathur in Palakkad.

The highlight of the BJP's fifth list was the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in her homestate Himachal Pradesh. The list, which named 111 candidates in 17 states, also featured new joinees like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Mr Gangopadhyay.

Mr Gangopadhyay, who joined the BJP recently after taking voluntary retirement, is the first former judge to join electoral politics. He has been fielded from Tamluk in Bengal and will face Trinamool's Debangshu Bhattacharya, a youth leader who had penned the party's "Khela Hobe" song.

Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been dropped and his seat has gone to Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in run-up to the election. His mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from her current seat, Sultanpur.

Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV series Ramayan, will contest from Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh too were part of the list.

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News Network
March 22,2024

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday produced Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal before the Rouse Avenue court and sought a 10-day custody in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. "Kejriwal was the kingpin of the scam," the ED reportedly told the court after the AAP chief was produced before Special Judge Kaveri Baweja around 2 pm amid tight security. 

ASG S V Raju was appearing for the agency, while Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi is representing Kejriwal. 

Raju in his argument said Kejriwal was "directly involved in formulation of the (liquor) policy... he was involved in handling of proceeds of crime as well in the Goa election campaign."

"The expert committee was constituted but it was a sham committee. The policy was made in such a manner that it would enable the taking of bribes and recoupment of people who gave the bribes," the ED counsel said. 

Kejriwal was produced in the trial court shortly after he withdrew from the Supreme Court his plea against arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. Kejriwal's counsel said he would contest the remand proceedings before the trial court and then come back to the apex court with another petition.

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