Hathras case: Rs 100 crore sent from abroad to fund violence in UP, hints ED

LUCKNOW: The investigations being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into apparently a well-planned plot to create unrest and caste violence in Hathras over the rape and murder of a Dalit girl have pointed towards the foreign funding of Rs 100 crore for the purpose.

As per the highly-placed sources, the ED has allegedly found that of Rs 100 crore to have come in accounts allegedly related to Popular Front of India (PFI). Of this, Rs 50 crore came from Mauritius. Now the directorate is further probing the actual sources of these funds and the real purpose behind them.

The ED has claimed that the entire funding was more than Rs 100 crore. The police and the cyber cell team investigating the case have found important clues. The ED can register a case in this connection and conduct raids besides interrogating the accused already arrested.

Meanwhile, the Delhi-based Kerala journalist and three other persons allegedly linked to PFI were booked for sedition on Wednesday. The four were arrested in Mathura on Monday while on their way to Hathras from Delhi and have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

"Four persons who were apprehended from Mathura on October 5 and had links with PFI were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of a larger conspiracy," says the FIR registered against them.

Police had said the four were taken into custody at Mathura’s Math toll plaza where the police were checking vehicles after receiving a tip-off that some suspicious people were on their way to Hathras from Delhi.

The four were in a car and identified themselves as Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich, and Alam of Rampur, the police said, adding their mobile phones, laptop, and some literature, which could have an impact on peace and order, were seized.

During interrogation, it came to light that they had links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associate organisation Campus Front of India (CFI), the police said, adding further their interrogation was underway.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), however, claimed that Siddique was their member and the secretary of the journalists' union. The members are now mulling to move the Supreme Court against UP Police action.