LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has busted a Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LeT ) terror funding network and arrested 10 people from various districts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar late Saturday night. The ATS also recovered Rs 42 lakh, fake passbooks, Aadhaar cards, laptops, mobiles and a country-made pistols from their possession.

“Ten people have been arrested from Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Pratapgarh in UP and Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. They were involved in terror funding and were acting on the directives of their handlers in Pakistan, both from Lashkar as well as ISI,” Asim Arun, ATS IG, told reporters on Sunday.

“The 10 accused had links with LeT. Some of the accused had assumed fake names, others were working as second-line feeders for their handlers based in Lahore,” Arun said.

“A LeT operative used to ask them to open bank accounts in fake names. He used to tell them how much money was to be transferred to which account. The accused used to get 10%-20% commission. So far, a total transaction of over Rs 1 crore has been detected,” the IG said.

UP DGP OP Singh told TOI that initial interrogation revealed that the accused had connections in five other states. “Police are verifying details of the network’s operation in other states,” he said.

The ATS busted the network following interrogation of 11 people arrested from Satna district in MP and an ISI agent from Punjab last year. Officials said two ISI operatives arrested from Jammu and Kashmir in 2016 had been in touch with the accused.

Arun said that all the accused had been taken in police remand for interrogation.

