The Madras High Court has denied bail to two accused persons who were reportedly part of a conspiracy allegedly hatched by the proscribed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to siphon off ₹40 crore lying in a dead woman’s inoperative savings bank account in the Mumbai Fort branch of a nationalised bank and use it for terror-funding.
Justices P.N. Prakash and RMT. Teekaa Raman refused to release T. Keeniston Fernando and K. Baskaran after concurring with the submission of National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Public Prosecutor R. Karthikeyan that the duo had not made out any case to be enlarged on bail pending trial in a very serious case registered against them.
It was brought to the notice of the court that one Hamida A. Lalljee had a savings bank account in Indian Overseas Bank. She died, but around ₹40 crore was lying in her account. This came to the notice of the LTTE, which was banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and it wanted to swindle the money for its terror activities.
Umakanthan alias Idhayan alias Charles alias Iniyan, a key LTTE operative stationed in Europe, was closely monitoring the account. On his directions, Letchumanan Mary Franciska, a Sri Lankan Tamil woman, came to India and managed to obtain Aadhaar, PAN card and an Indian passport in her name.
The other accused, including Fernando, Baskaran, C. Johnson Samuel, G. Dharmendran and E. Mohan, joined the conspiracy during various stages of its operation. They began to create a fake power of attorney in favour of Mary and attempted to withdraw the money from the account of the deceased woman.
However, before they could execute their dubious plan, Mary was intercepted, on the basis of a tip-off, by the Bureau of Immigration at the Chennai airport on October 1, 2021, with the Indian passport. She was handed over to the ‘Q’ Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Considering the gravity of the offence, the Centre on January 17 this year transferred the investigation to the NIA, which arrested the other accused, completed the probe and filed a final report before a special court on March 29 under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the UAPA, the Passports Act and the Foreigners Act.
