Pakistan using Nepal links to fund anti-India operations?

KATHMANDU - The arrest of the son of a powerful Nepalese politician on charges of heading a major fake Indian currency and drugs smuggling racket allegedly sponsored by Pakistani intelligence agencies has exposed how Islamabad is quietly pouring money into Nepal with the underworld’s help to unleash a propaganda war against India, well placed sources here say.

Yunus Ansari, the son of former minister Salim Miya Ansari, who is alleged to have links with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and crimeboss Dawood Ibrahim who has massive following in Mumbai’s underworld, was arrested by a special task force of Nepal police after a tip-off by Indian authorities that he was running the two criminal networks.

Yunus Ansari, the president of Nepal’s National Wrestling Federation, is also the chairman of a new television channel that is yet to start regular transmission. While Yunus Ansari was arrested along with three Nepalis, two Pakistanis, one African and one from the Caribbean, police said they had no evidence against his father, former forest and soil conservation minister Ansari.

Yunus Ansari and his associates were caught with fake Indian currency worth over Indian Rs.2.5 million last week and nearly four kilograms of heroin after a long period of surveillance that started with the arrest of two Nepalis with fake Indian currency in India’s Madhya Pradesh state last year.

The Nepal chase started on New Year’s Day when Yunus Ansari’s Nepali bodyguard, Kashiram Adhikari, was dispatched to Thamel, once the hub of tourists and now increasingly targeted by criminals and sex workers, to make contact with Pakistani agents, the sources with access to privileged information told IANS.

Adhikari led police to the Red Planet Guest House in Thamel where Pakistani national Mohammad Sajjad was awaiting him in room 304. The bodyguard collected a red suitcase from Sajjad and went to room 204 where another Pakistani, Mohammad Iqbal, was waiting with two suitcases.

After collecting the lot, Adhikari headed for the Bluebird Mall in Thapathali where Yunus Ansari had allegedly rented a room. Police caught him there and a search exposed the false bottoms in the suitcases, where the fake notes were hidden.

According to initial investigation, the racket starts from Karachi where it is headed by a Pakistani, known as Haji Talad Ali. The modus operandi was simple. The money would be brought to the same guest house from where Adhikari would take it to his master.

When police raided the hotel and arrested the two Pakistanis, Sajjad was found to possess heroin as well. Yunus was arrested soon afterwards from his residence in Tahachal.

Police also arrested a Guyana citizen, K. Ibrahim, and another from Sierra Leone, Austin Ibrahim, who were to have circulated the heroin.