Enforcement Directorate’s Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana has written to the agency expressing his willingness to represent it “pro bono” (without charging any money) before the special courts in a money laundering probe related to a terror-funding case involving Lashkar-e-Taiba chief and 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. Rana said he took the decision considering the issue of national security involved in the case.
Rana recently secured a permission from a city court to quiz an UAE-based businessman Naval Kishore Kapoor, arrested by the NIA in the case, in relation to the money laundering probe. Rana had told the court that Kapoor was required for interrogation and recording of his statement in the PMLA case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier interrogated a Kashmiri businessman, Zahoor Watali, a co-accused in the terror-funding case, during an investigation into the matter under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for allegedly receiving funds from abroad.
The NIA had alleged that it was a ‘cover’ created by Watali to bring foreign remittance from unknown sources to India. Watali, LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen head Syed Salahuddin and others have been accused by the NIA of “conspiring to wage a war against the government” and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir valley. The ED had registered a case under the provisions of Prevention of money laundering act based on an FIR filed by NIA.
