The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday night arrested Al Falah Group chairman Jawad Ahmed Siddiqui on money-laundering charges.
The Haryana-based university has come under the scanner after three doctors working there were allegedly found to be part of the “white-collar terror module” linked to the November 10 Red Fort car blast that killed 13 people.
Siddiqui was arrested hours after multiple teams of the ED conducted searches at 25 locations across Delhi and Faridabad linked to the Al Falah Group in connection with alleged fraudulent claims of accreditation and financial irregularities by the group’s flagship institutions.
An ED official said Siddiqui was arrested following a detailed investigation and analysis of evidence gathered during the search operation.
Siddiqui, the official said, has been managing trustee of the Al Falah Charitable Trust since 1995, exercising complete control over the trust and its network of educational institutions.
“Exhaustive evidence of trustees diverting funds to family concerns and layering of funds clearly establishes the pattern of generation and movement of the proceeds of crime. He was arrested after establishing his culpability in the offence,” the official said.
The Al Falah Charitable Trust, the official said, was established by a public charitable trust deed dated September 8, 1995, with Siddiqui named as one of the first trustees and designated as the managing trustee.
“All the educational institutions (university and colleges) are ultimately owned and financially consolidated under this trust, which is effectively controlled by Siddiqui. The entire Al Falah Group has seen a meteoric rise since the 1990s, metamorphosing into a large educational body. However, the rise is not backed by adequate financials,” he said.
The ED, which has registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, is probing alleged financial irregularities at Al Falah University. Sources said entities tied to the Al Falah Trust were also being examined for suspected fund diversion and layering.
Last week, the government asked the ED to review the financial trail of the university following a high-level meeting chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah.
“In a coordinated enforcement operation at 5.15am today, officials executed search actions on 25 premises of the Al Falah Group in connection with the ongoing investigation into financial irregularities, use of shell companies, accommodation entities and money laundering,” said another ED official.
According to him, nine shell companies linked to the Al Falah Group, all registered at a single address, were under examination.
“Early findings point to multiple risk indicators consistent with shell-company behaviour, including no physical presence or meaningful utility consumption at declared places of business, common mobile number and emails across various companies and accounts,” the ED official said.
Other risk indicators are the absence of EPFO/ESIC filings inconsistent with reported scale of operations, overlapping directors/signatories and weak KYC trails across entities, minimal salary disbursal through banking channels and absence of HR records and synchronised incorporation patterns and common contact coordinates across firms, the ED official said.
Delhi police have also registered two FIRs on a complaint from the UGC. One FIR alleges cheating while the other invokes charges of forgery. The Association of Indian Universities has revoked Al Falah University’s membership.
Earlier, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) had issued a notice asking the private university to explain why the UGC should not be asked to withdraw its recognition. The university had claimed on its website that its Al Falah School of Engineering and Technology and Al Falah School of Education and Training had “A” grades from the NAAC.
Nabi video
A video has surfaced purportedly showing the alleged Red Fort car bomber, Dr Umar un Nabi, talking about “suicide bombing” and “martyrdom operation” in what appears to be an affected accent.
Sources in the NIA said the person in the undated, 1.21-minute video clip was indeed Nabi.
The video’s origin and how it made its way to social media remain unclear. Investigators suspect that Nabi himself shot the video on his phone at his office in Al Falah University in Faridabad.
The audio is not clear throughout. The man in the video, who appears to be rehearsing a speech, purportedly says: “One of the very misunderstood concept (sic) is the concept of what has been labelled as suicide bombing.
“It is a martyrdom operation…. There are multiple contraindications... there are multiple arguments that have been brought against it.
“Martyrdom operation… when a person presumes that he is going for sure die (sic) at a particular place at a particular time, he goes against... the presumption that a particular… is going to die in a particular situation….”
'Negligence' cry
Kashmir politicians on Tuesday accused the security establishment under lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha of negligence in storing a huge cache of explosives in the Nowgam police station and forcing personnel with little expertise to handle them, leading to the loss of nine lives on Friday.