Lashkar operatives holed up in Thailand

parijataka

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Time to bust Lashkar's outsourced gang

The signing of the extradition treaty with Thailand recently has been seen as a key development in fighting both terrorism and the drug menace that India faces. While all the focus is on Munna Zingada, the Dawood Ibrahim aide serving the last few days of his sentence in Thailand, the National Investigation Agency have been now sniffing for more information on operative named Athar Butt for his alleged role in the 26/11 attack, who currently is in the custody of the Spanish agencies.

Athar Butt who is currently in a jail at Spain has a deep rooted network in Thailand. Butt is not part of any terror group, but all groups based out of Pakistan have outsourced the task of creating documents to his team which comprises nine persons. While India is yet to get a formal approval from Spain to interrogate Butt, the NIA would pursue the case against his accomplices some of whom are still holed up in Thailand.

According to the investigation into the 26/11 attack conducted by the National Investigation Agency, there is a great deal of information that could come out from Thailand. The Lashkar-e-Tayiba has utilised the services of various operatives from Thailand, Spain and also Italy for this attack. However speaking specifically about Butt and his team they had helped forge documents for all operatives involved in the attack. Passports, identification cards, travel documents among others were outsourced to the agency run by Butt.

The NIA also points out that the extradition of Munna Zingada will also be crucial to the case. The Dawood Ibrahim gang which has a sizeable clout in the Thailand drug market was also in touch with Butt and his team. Thailand had become a major route for the D Gang to smuggle arms, ammunitions and drugs and for this they had used fake documents created by the same agency that the Lashkar used. Through the investigation, the NIA would look to find out if it was the same agency which helped Headley with the documents although the United States had claimed that it was Tawwahur Rana who did this job. With the case against Rana appearing to be weak following his acquittal in the 26/11 case by the US court, the NIA which plans on questioning him soon will expect that their case would become stronger if they are able to crack the Butt angle. They would want to find out if Rana had any link with the Thailand team which helped Headley with the documents.

The information that the NIA has on Butt is that he had created over 40 fake documents for the Lashkar for the 26/11 attack. He was also involved in creating documents for the Al-Qaeda and the LTTE sometime back. His team would steal documents and use the same to forge documents for drug dealers and terrorists, the NIA points out. In addition to this the team also stole SIM cards and provide them to terrorists. Butt according to the NIA has been in the business for the past 20 years, but never was considered to be part of any one terror network.

Indian agencies say that the recent treaty that was signed with Thailand will help them crack several cases. The major thing would be to bust the drug corridor and arms corridor that passes through Thailand since the money raised through this is what funds terror against India.
 

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