New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has linked the 2021 drug haul at the Adani Group-owned Mundra Port to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claiming that proceeds from the crime were used to fund the terror outfit’s activities like the deadly attack on tourists in Pahalgam.
Arguing against a bail plea filed by prime accused Harpreet Singh Talwar, a Delhi-based businessman, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that an investigation by the NIA had revealed that a cartel run by Talwar was funding activities of the LeT.
Referring to these activities, Bhati said, “Look what they did to India at Pahalgam by shooting innocent tourists”, while appearing before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh.
On Thursday, Talwar took strong exception to the argument, informing the apex court that his children were being bullied in school as a result.
Senior advocate C.A. Sundaram, appearing for Talwar, told the Supreme Court that the NIA’s statement made in court Wednesday had been widely reported by the media, which had led to the social ostracism of the businessman’s family. He urged the bench to clarify that there was no link between his client’s case and the Pahalgam incident.
The NIA has long maintained that the money generated from the international drug cartel busted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2021 at Mundra port, was used to fund the LeT.
The Mundra drug haul
The NIA had arrested Talwar in August 2022 after it allegedly found that he was part of an international drug syndicate involved in smuggling heroin from Afghanistan to India.
These consignments of narcotics, the NIA alleged, were being imported as semi-processed talc, bituminous coal, and one of them—amounting to 2,988 kg—was intercepted by the DRI at Gujarat’s Mundra International Port. The drug consignment was worth Rs 21,000 crore, according to an assessment by agencies.
After the seizure, the Ministry of Home Affairs had ordered the NIA to probe the case. The agency lodged an FIR in October 2021, and filed a charge sheet against the accused in February 2023.
In the charge sheet, the NIA had alleged that Talwar, who runs multiple clubs, retail showrooms and import firms, had made numerous visits to Dubai and “wilfully participated” in the conspiracy to smuggle commercial quantities of heroin into India.
These imports were made in the names of firms opened in the names of his relatives and employees, but he controlled them, the NIA had alleged. The agency had also charged a firm called Magent India, which it claimed Talwar used to import and receive heroin disguised as semi-processed talc stone from Afghanistan to India.
During the investigation, the NIA had allegedly found that a network of Afghan smugglers was part of the cartel responsible for the transportation of narcotics from ports such as Mundra and Kolkata to warehouses in Delhi, as well as their extraction from the imported items post arrival in the warehouses.
“Investigation established that funds generated through the sale proceeds of heroin were provided to operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for furtherance of terrorist activities in India,” the NIA had alleged in the charge sheet against Talwar.
The investigation had also allegedly found that the seized heroin was the sixth such consignment imported by Talwar and his cartel before the entire nexus was busted in 2021. The cartel was operating with the help of Pakistan’s ISI and Iranian men, the NIA’s charge sheet said.
Based on the charge sheet, a trial court in Ahmedabad framed charges against the accused, including Talwar, on 30 November last year. The trial has reached the stage of examination of witnesses.
‘Terrorist’s children’
Talwar’s lawyer Sundaram told the SC Thursday that his client’s children were bullied in school that day and labelled as “terrorist’s children”, prompting the family to bring them back from school in the morning itself.
Concerned, the bench assured Sundaram that such reports would not influence the court. “No family member of anyone, whoever committed or did not commit anything, should suffer due to it,” it said.
Sundaram even challenged Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s assertion that the money earned through the alleged drug trafficking had been routed to LeT.
“Show me a scrap of paper which says so. It is nowhere,” Sundaram told Mehta.
Bhatti also condemned the attack on the children and promised that police intervention would be called for in case the children are victimised on account of the pending proceedings against Talwar.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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