Masjid allegedly built with funds from LeT, claims NIA

GURGAON: National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe found that a mosque in Palwal district of Haryana was allegedly built on funding from Hafiz Saeed-led Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan, as per a report by The Indian Express.

NIA officers on October 3 searched the Khulafa-e-Rashideen masjid at Uttawar village in Palwal.

Three men Mohammed Salim and Sajjad Abdul Wani, including the Imam of the masjid, Mohammed Salman (52), were arrested for allegedly receiving a funding from Lahore-based Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), an NGO set up by the Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Lashkar’s parent organisation.

An NIA officer said, “Salman, who came in touch with LeT associated men when he was in Dubai, had been receiving funds from FIF. The organisation, we have learnt, gave him Rs 70 lakh to build a mosque in Uttawar. It even gave him money for the marriage of his daughters. We are now probing from where the mosque has been receiving its donations and how this money is being used.”

As per NIA’s investigation, FIF is a front-end organisation of “the LeT, a terror organisation proscribed under UAPA… FIF is placed on the list of terrorist organisations as per entry 33 in the First Schedule to the UAPA read with Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order 2016”.