Neelabh Srivastava
New Delhi, Jun 5 (PTI) The Income Tax department is probing a “treacherous” and secretive channel of money transfer through ATMs along the ”open” Indo-Nepal border which is suspected to have “national security” implications.
The department, which stumbled across the stealth money transfers during the recently conducted Assembly polls in five states, has sent a classified report to central security agencies for a detailed probe.
“The I-T department”s investigation unit stumbled at this covert method of transferring of funds along the sensitive Nepal border recently. The transfer of funds could also involve cross-border transfer of cash,” a senior officer involved in the investigation said.
A detailed report has been sent to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other law enforcement agencies to check instances of terror funding and supply of money for illegal arms trade along the border, the officer said.
The I-T report, prepared after collating data from across various locations along the 1,751 km-long Indo-Nepal border, has said the transfer of funds through Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) of various banks is a subtle and cunning way of transferring funds, aimed at escaping the radar of investigating agencies or police.
“Issues related to national security need to be verified by various agencies,” the officer, citing the report said.
A long overdue step. late by at least ten years sine a DGIT (Inv.), Patna has suggested this action. The porous border itself a big menace to India for long especially due the Nepalese govt.’s encouragement to certain communities to settle down on the other side of the border in Nepal.