New Delhi: Sri Lankan national Letchumanan Mary Franciska entered India on 16 December 2019 on a tourist visa. Her mission, according to central agencies, was to secure Indian photo IDs using forged documents to prolong her stay, and siphon off funds from inoperative bank accounts. These funds, National Investigation Agency (NIA) alleges, were to be used for revival of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.
But Franciska’s mission came undone after she was intercepted at Chennai airport on 2 October 2021. She has been in judicial custody since.
Now, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to question her as part of a money laundering probe into an alleged attempt to revive LTTE, ThePrint has learnt. The questioning will likely take place next week at Chennai’s Puzhal Central Prison, where Franciska is lodged.
Following her arrest in October 2021, the Tamil Nadu CID took Franciska into custody for overstaying her tourist visa and obtaining an Indian passport by fraudulent means. Her interrogation led CID to the alleged plot to revive LTTE and it decided to invoke terror charges against Franciska.
Her statements led to seven more arrests, namely T. Kenniston Fernando, K. Baskaran, C. Johnson Samuel, L. Chellamuthu, G. Dharmendiran, E. Mohan and G.P.N. Bharathy.
Thereafter, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). A month later, the ED too opened an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in the matter. But since Franciska was in judicial custody the money laundering proceeded at a sluggish pace, until earlier this year when the ED sought permission from a Chennai court to question her.
On Wednesday, the court allowed ED officials to record her statement, calling it a “peculiar case” and saying it is “inclined to allow this petition”.
“In this case the investigating agency did not pray for detention of the accused under their custody for investigation. But it is a peculiar case where the investigating agency is seeking permission to interrogate the accused in jail in connection with money laundering. So the question of formal arrest of the accused does not arise,” read the court’s order.
The judge also pointed out that Section 50 of the Prevention Money Laundering Act, 2002 empowers the ED to issue summons to individuals and compel them to produce records and give evidence, adding that once the accused is in judicial custody, the agency has no other option than to approach the court seeking permission to interrogate the accused.
In its order, a copy of which ThePrint has seen, the court permitted ED officials to take a laptop, printer, and other necessary electronic devices they would need inside Puzhal Central Prison. The questioning will last two days and has to be conducted within a week since the order was passed.
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‘Conspiracy to revive LTTE’
According to the NIA, Franciska travelled to India at the instructions of one Umakanthan, a Sri Lankan Tamil living in Denmark who the agency has identified as the “main conspirator” in the case. Umakanthan, official records show, joined the LTTE in 1992 and underwent arms training at the Tamil militant outfit’s Jaffna base for three months. He was then posted in the LTTE political wing in Jaffna, and was also a part of the outfit’s assault on the Sri Lankan army and naval bases in Pooneryn in November 1993.
In 1997, he travelled to Chennai for treatment for a bullet injury and two years later was lodged at the Chengalpattu Special Camp for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, according to NIA. The agency also told the court that the Tamil Nadu government had in 1999 argued in an affidavit before the Madras High Court that Umakanthan’s presence outside Chengalpattu Special Camp “would be detrimental to the security of the nation”.
The NIA alleges Franciska, acting on the directions of Umakanthan, created a Power of Attorney to take control of the inactive account of one Hamida-A-Lalljee in the Indian Overseas Bank. She was told to siphon off Rs 42.28 crores from the bank account, and route the funds.
Upon her arrival in India, Franciska with the help of co-accused, including Fernando and Baskaran, secured forged documents to obtain identity documents such as Aadhar, voter ID card, PAN and an Indian passport in her name. Umakanthan, the NIA alleges, deposited $1,69,902 (Rs 1.19 crore) in Baskaran’s bank account, through one Bank of America account opened in someone else’s name.
Besides this material, a UAPA tribunal presided over by Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora of Delhi HC last November said it “perused statements of the protected witnesses which also strengthen the claim that the Letchumanan Mary Franciska was working to revive the LTTE in India and Sri Lanka”.
The tribunal in its order upheld the Centre’s decision to extend a five-year ban on LTTE after the Ministry of Home Affairs’ submission that “even after its military defeat in May, 2009 in Sri Lanka LTTE has not abandoned the concept of ‘Eelam’ and has been clandestinely working towards the ‘Eelam’ cause by undertaking fund raising and propaganda activities”.
The home ministry further submitted that “remnant LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to regroup the scattered activists and resurrect the outfit locally and internationally” and that “separatist Tamil Chauvinist groups and pro-LTTE groups continue to foster a separatist tendency amongst the masses and enhance the support base for LTTE in India”.
Franciska’s was one of four cases registered by the NIA in this regard. The cases were initially lodged by police in Tamil Nadu and Kerala between 2020 and 2022.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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