KATHMANDU: Pakistan has been using Nepal’s soil for its ISI terror activities against India.

Nepal Police have arrested several Pakistan nationals, staying illegally in Nepal, having a connection with the Indian Mujhaddin as well as hardliner activists for carrying out illegal activities.

On May 24, 2019, Nepal Police arrested 3 Pakistanis — Nasir Uddin, Mohammad Akhtar and Nadiya Anbar — and confiscated around 8 million fake Indian currency from them. Police said the three Pakistani nationals were working for their kingpin Yunus Ansari, son of Ex-Minister of Nepal Salim Miya Ansari.

The arrest of these people and the seizure of a large amount of counterfeit Indian money indicates that Nepal could have been taken as a breeding ground for those involved in printing and circulating fake currencies within the territory of Nepal and outside, including in India, sources said.

Police arrested three people waiting for Uddin, who had landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) last year. They have been identified as Yunus Ansari, Suyal Khan and Sudan Ranabhat.

“The three individuals waiting outside the TIA were arrested. Preliminary investigation reveals that the final receiver of the illegally smuggled currency was none other than Ansari,” Gajendra Kumar Thakur, chief at the airport customs, said.

Investigating agencies of Nepal have pinned four routes used to bring and sneak counterfeit Indian money into the territory of India. The routes have been identified as the Karachi-Doha-Kathmandu; Pakistan-Oman- Kathmandu; Bangkok-Kathmandu; and Singapore-Kathmandu.

Apart from these routes, some other routes have also been used to bring in counterfeit Indian money to Nepal.

Thakur said they send the bills to the Nepal Rastra Bank for analysis upon suspicion to be fake.

Uddin was passing through a regular security check at the TIA when the content of his briefcase triggered suspicion among the officials at the airport customs, he informed.

The x-ray machine at the customs detected a huge quantity of papers in the briefcase. Customs officials put an ‘RC’ tag, (such a tag is put on luggage deemed suspicious) on his briefcase and let Uddin pass through the security check.

The officials found the briefcase filled with the Indian currency of Rs 2,000 bills when they checked the briefcase manually.

Thakur said no sooner had the officials taken away Uddin for interrogation, Anbar and Atar removed the tag from their briefcase.

The customs officials planned to arrest the people coming to receive the trio. As per their plan, they sent Uddin outside the airport with an empty briefcase where three people, Yunus Ansari, Suyal Khan and Sudan Ranabhat, were waiting for him.

Customs officials, with the help of the police, then arrested them.

Ansari, the main boss, has been arrested twice for counterfeiting currency in the past, according to the police.

Police said Ansari was first arrested in 2010 along with Rs 2.5 million counterfeit Indian currency from Thamel. He was sent to jail and was released a couple of years after. Police arrested him again in 2014 form Lalitpur with around Rs 3.5 million fake Indian currency, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shyam Lal Gyawali.

Ansari was shot at by Jasjeet Singh alias Bijaya, inside the jail when he was still serving his sentence in the central jail after his arrest from Thamel. Bijaya has reached the jail on the pretext of meeting Charles Sobhraj, notorious bikini killer.

Meanwhile, on July 3, 2019, police arrested two Pakistani nationals, including a woman — Mohshin Khan, 32, and Puja Mohshin Khan, 31, from Bhaktapur on charges of theft from a shop in Kathmandu. The duo hailed from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

Likewise, on July 28, 2019, Nepal Police arrested two Pakistani nationals — Sohail Feroze and Kashif Parvez — for their alleged involvement in illegal activities in Nepal. Meanwhile, police also arrested Khalid Mahmood in Nepal for women trafficking.

Similarly, police had also arrested Yasin Bhatkal in 2013, an alleged Founder of Indian Mujahideen and having ties with Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, accused of carrying out bomb attacks in India, from Nepal.