The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday carried out searches at 25 locations in Delhi NCR in connection with its probe into the November 10 Delhi blast.
The premises raided include those linked to the terror-tainted Al-Falah University and individuals associated with the institution. The Key personnel overseeing finance and administration of the trust and the University have also been covered in the raids.
Teams of the agency raided an office location in Delhi's Okhla area with a security cordon being provided by the police and paramilitary forces.
“The ED operation forms part of an ongoing investigation into financial irregularities, the use of shell companies, accommodation entities, and money laundering,” the central agency said in a press release.
“Nine shell companies linked to the Al-Falah group, all registered at a single address, are under examination. The operation forms part of an ongoing investigation into financial irregularities, use of shell companies, accommodation entities and money laundering,” said the statement.
“In addition, prima facie discrepancies have been noted in claims regarding UGC and NAAC recognition. These aspects are being examined with the concerned authorities," it stated.
Preliminary findings point to multiple "risk" indicators consistent with shell-company behaviour like no physical presence or meaningful utility consumption at declared places of business and common mobile number and email across various companies and accounts.
The ED investigators have also found absence of EPFO/ESIC filings inconsistent with reported scale of operations and overlapping of directors/signatories and weak KYC trails across entities.
Instances of minimal salary disbursal through banking channels and absence of HR (human resource) records part from synchronised incorporation patterns and common contact coordinates across firms have been detected at the varsity, the statement from the agency added.
The institution had employed Dr. Umar un Nabi, the accused bomber, along with other individuals linked to the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)-connected “white-collar” Faridabad terror module, according to investigators.
This comes days after two FIRs registered by the Delhi Police against Al-Falah University. The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) had recently revoked the institution’s membership after its alleged links to the terror module surfaced. One FIR pertains to charges of cheating, while the second invokes sections related to forgery.
On Monday, the police issued two summonses to university chairman Javed Ahmad Siddiqui based on a complaint filed by the University Grants Commission (UGC). Investigators said Siddiqui’s statement is crucial to addressing inconsistencies regarding the university’s functioning and the activities of those associated with it.
Al-Falah University has emerged as a key focal point in the Delhi blast case, with investigators suspecting that the planning of the high-intensity explosion which claimed 14 lives and left more than 20 injured, was carried out on its premises.
(With inputs from agencies)
