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Missing Kashmir terror financier had RAW links

NEW DELHI: A Dubai-based hawala trader, who jumped bail early this month to escape prosecution on charges of financing terrorism, helped to broker secret talks between the government of India and the Pakistan-based Hizb ul-Mujahideen, highly placed official sources told The Hindu.

Nasir Shafi Mir, a Jammu and Kashmir resident with extensive property holdings in the United Arab Emirates, served as a go-between for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), when it established contact with the Hizb in 1999. His covert liaison work helped to facilitate the declaration of a ceasefire by the Hizb the next year.

Mr. Mir, the sources said, helped to set up meetings between RAW operatives and top leaders of the Hizb, including its Rawalpindi-based supreme commander Mohammad Yusuf Shah. In 2000, he accompanied the pro-dialogue Hizb commander Abdul Majid Dar to Srinagar, where the organisation held its first — and last — formal negotiations with the government.

Although the 2000 ceasefire soon fell apart, Mr. Mir continued to be a point man for the RAW’s peace efforts. In the build-up to the 2005-2006 talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Mr. Mir is believed to have helped to win a promise from the Hizb not to target the secessionist leader for killing.

However, the Intelligence Bureau found, Mr. Mir also continued to funnel funds to terror groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Despite the RAW’s protests that criminal action against him would jeopardise its covert line of communication with the Hizb, India’s domestic intelligence service pushed hard for action against the businessman, arguing he was doing more harm than good.

A Delhi police team finally arrested the terror financier in February last year. A total of Rs. 65 lakh in cash as well as explosives and timers were recovered from the boot of the car he was using. In a statement to the police, he admitted to having transferred funds from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the Pakistan-administered Kashmir branch of the Jamaat-e-Islami to both the Hizb and Mirwaiz Farooq.

Earlier this month, a Delhi court issued warrants for Mr. Mir’s arrest, after he failed to appear for a scheduled hearing of terror-financing charges. He has not been seen since November 8, when he disappeared from the Shangri-La Hotel in central Delhi, leaving behind unpaid bills. Officials suspect that he may have returned to Dubai through Kathmandu using a false passport.

Interestingly, Mr. Mir’s disappearance was preceded by energetic lobbying to secure his release. Delhi police sources said a Union Minister, an industrialist with links to the People’s Democratic Party, two former RAW officials and a prominent Srinagar-based businessman made unsuccessful efforts to persuade the prosecution not to oppose Mr. Mir’s pleas for the return of his court-confiscated passport.

Mirwaiz Farooq also asked government officials to review Mr. Mir’s case, arguing that the charges against him were unfounded. Mr. Mir’s name figured in a list of detainees whose release the APHC chairman sought during a March 2006 meeting with Union government mediators to discuss the secessionist coalition’s participation in multiparty dialogue.

Officials said Mr. Mir’s contacts with India’s covert services began when he offered his services in return for the easing of police pressure on his family. “He basically came to us with a straightforward deal, offering to influence the Hizb on our behalf if we went slow on criminal cases pending against his family,” said one police investigator.

In late 1998, an Intelligence Bureau-led operation led to the arrest of Mr. Mir’s father, Mohammad Shafi Mir. The senior Mir’s upmarket Srinagar-based carpet business, investigators alleged, had been used as a cover for cash flows from the ISI to Ghulam Hasan Khan, then Kashmir division commander of the Hizb. According to Jammu and Kashmir police records, the New York-based secessionist leader Ghulam Nabi Fai used to route ISI funds to Mr. Mir in Dubai. From there, Mr. Mir used two wire transfer services set up for him with ISI funds — Rima Exchange and Cash Express Exchange — to his father’s business, KM Carpets, which under-invoiced sales to Dubai to launder the transfers.

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