Kochi: Terror links in the gold smuggling case has been confirmed with the arrest of two persons on Sunday. The NIA team arrested Muhammadali Ibrahim and Muhammadali from Muvattupuzha. The duo was produced before NIA special court here and remanded. Muhammadali Ibrahim is the 24th accused in the hand chopping case of a professor in Muvattupuzha.
Meanwhile, some crucial information has been received from two gold merchants who are in custody of the NIA in Chennai. They used to buy smuggled gold and sell them at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. The fund for terrorist activities in Kashmir were flowing mainly from Nellore. With this, the NIA has started investigation towards this.
The investigation team seized 2 hard disks, 1 tablet, 8 mobile phones, 6 SIM cards, 1 digital video recorder and 5 DVDs in raids conducted at 6 places in Ernakulam and Malappuram. They also seized bank passbooks, credit cards and travel documents. The probe team raided the residences of Jalal and Rabins in Muvvattupuzha and the houses of K T Ramees, Muhammed Shafi, Saithalavi and PT Abdu in Malappuram. The raid continued for many hours.
NIA received information on the duo after questioning KT Ramees who was arrested earlier. Following this, the NIA team arrested them. According to the NIA report, Muhammadali Ibrahim and Muhammadali collected the smuggled gold from Ramees and distributed it in various centres. They held discussions at various hotels in Thiruvananthapuram and Kovalam. The amount was used for terrorist activities, according to the report.
A total of 10 people were arrested by the NIA in connection with the gold smuggling case so far. Muvvattupuzha native A M Jalal and Malappuram native Saithalavi were arrested on July 30. Malappuram natives Muhammed Shafi and PT Abdu were arrested on July 31. Earlier, NIA had arrested Swapna Suresh, Sandeep Nair, Sarith and K T Ramees and also named Faisal Fareed and Rabins as accused.
