'Wanted' financial brain of Hurriyat flees country

Sumir Kaul

Srinagar, Jan 11 (PTI) Nasir Safi Mir, alleged to be the 'financial brain' behind Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz
Umer Farooq and other separatist leaders, has managed to flee the country after getting a forged passport from a southern state even as Delhi Police claimed that they were still looking for him.

According to sources in the central security agencies,
Mir against whom a non-bailable warrant was issued, had
allegedly bribed some officials of a southern state and made
his passport after which he took a route to Nepal and then to
Europe.

From Europe he was reported to have flown to Libya before
finally reaching Dubai, the sources said.

Mir, was earlier arrested by Delhi Police in February
2006 while ferrying Rs 55 lakh from a Delhi-based jeweller
along with some explosives, but had jumped parole which he had
got after several requests made by his family to the court
citing medical problems.

The 38-year-old Dubai-based businessman, who owns carpet
showroom and money exchange firms in Gulf, had been regularly
reporting to the nearest police station till earlier October
2008, but after that he did not turn up neither at the police
station nor on the hearing date of the court.

Mir, who was considered as a prize catch by the Delhi
Police following a well-executed operation by central security
agencies, was all of a sudden missing prompting the court to
issue a non-bailable warrant against him.

Delhi Police had shown its inability to trace Mir, whom
they had claimed was very much hiding within the country.

According to the recent technical intercepts, Mir
allegedly spoke to the separatist leadership after reaching
Dubai.

While trying to trace back his steps, senior officials in
the security agencies found that he had been helped by some
sleuths of country's external intelligence agency, a
Delhi-based Kashmiri businessman and a Srinagar-based hotelier
in fleeing the country.

A Union cabinet minister had also taken up the case of
release of Mir with the government after Hurriyat Chairman
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq had put this as one of the pre-conditions
for entering into a dialogue.

According to the police files, Mir was last spotted
publicly with the Mirwaiz in a five star hotel in South Delhi
in September 2008.

During his interrogation, Mir had allegedly told the cops
that the money was meant for the Mirwaiz and also claimed to
have spilled beans about huge investments made by the Hurriyat
chairman in Dubai, they said.

During his custodial interrogation, Mir had alleged that
the Mirwaiz had allegedly made certain investments in buying
shopping spaces in Dubai besides investing in his (Mir's)
money exchange business, the sources claimed.

Mir, whose father was picked up in 2001 for funding
militant groups in Kashmir valley, has claimed the money was
part of the payment that "some officials in Pakistan had
promised to the Mirwaiz for keeping his flock together in
Srinagar".

He had also claimed he used to look after the Mirwaiz's
foreign trips. PTI SKL