Title: Pak agency picks
on poor of Nizamabad
Author:
Publication: Deccan
Chronicle
Date: April 24, 2000
Pakistan's ISI has infiltrated
into several pockets in this district by floating various frontal organisations
and luring the locals into carrying out subversive
activities against the State.According to intelligence
reports conveyed to the State government, the ISI agents have
picked on the poverty- stricken and unemployed Muslims in the district,
specially in towns like Nizamabad, Bodhan and Kamareddy.
There are
approximately three lakh Muslims living in this district.The ISI is said
to have embarked upon a two-pronged operation. One is to indoctrinate
the vulnerable Muslim community with the fundamentalist concept of
'jihad' and the other is to pump counterfeit currency notes into
the State and shatter the economy. Nizamabad is
said to have been chosen as an ideal place for smuggling fake currency
given the fact that almost in every second household,
the male member is employed in the Gulf countries.
Since the immigrants
mostly choose to send the money through the 'hawala' channels, the ISI
agents are distributing fake currency to the families after
mixing them with genuine notes, said police sources.The
fake currency is being smuggled into the country through
various channels including concealing them in TV cabinets and
children's garments, a top Nizamabad official told Deccan Chronicle.
Confirming the
despatch of such fake currency, Nizamabad Superintendent of
Police SP Ravi Shankar recalled that the local police had seized
fake currency to the tune of Rs 2 crore.
One of the arrested smuggler,
Bhoomaiah, who works in Dubai, confessed during interrogation
that he brought the fake currency under threat from the ISI
gangs based in Dubai. In fact, some of the employees
working in the Gulf are threatened with dismissal
from service if they do not carry out the 'Ñdikat' of
the ISI agents based in the Gulf countries,
Bhoomaiah is said to have told the police.
What has baffled
the police is not just the similarity in appearance of
the fake notes (Rs 500 and Rs
100 denomination), but also the sound made when the note
was rubbed with the fingers. A senior official said the
fake notes, like the genuine notes, gave similar
sound when examined.However, the police managed to
detect the fake currency.
'When we
exposed the currency to specially designed
scanners, they were found to be fake,' an official said. The fake
currency currency notes, when exposed to the scanner, do not glow
at the serial numbers while the genuine notes do.According to one senior
police official, in January this year, during Ramzan, a group of
20-odd able-bodied beggars came all the way from Kashmir to Nizamabad for
begging alms.
When picked up
for interrogation by the local police, the so-called beggars
claimed that they have come to the district
for collecting 'zakhet' (alms given by pious
Muslims during the Ramzan festival). 'But does it require someone,
that too able-bodied persons, to come all the way from Kashmir
to Nizamabad for begging, wondered the official.
'Though we initially
picked them for interrogation, we had to set them free
following protests from the Muslim community members
and a section of the local media', said a police official. But we are still
maintaining a vigil on the visit and movement of such elements
into the district. he said.
