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Bhopal/New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS) In a dramatic development across two states, the investigation into alleged fraud and irregularities involving Faridabad-based Al-Falah University, at the center of the Delhi car blast case, has taken a sensational turn.
While the ED has arrested the university’s founder-chairman Jawad Ahmed Siddiqui in connection with the 24-year-old chit fund scam in Bhopal, his younger brother Hamood (Hamood) Ahmed Siddiqui, who was absconding for nearly 25 years, was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police in Hyderabad in connection with several investment fraud cases registered in Mhow in 2000.
Fifty-year-old Hamud, wanted in at least four cases, including a 1988 case related to rioting and attempt to murder, was arrested in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli area on Sunday and brought to Mhow on Monday.
Siddiqui and his brother Hamood Siddiqui allegedly defrauded the public of over Rs 2 crore in the Bhopal chit fund scam.
The fraud, carried out between 1997 and 2001, involved a fake chit fund company that promised investors to double their money within a few months. Hundreds of people, including many victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy and members of the Muslim community, surrendered their life savings, lured by high returns.
By 2001, the brothers were on the run after ruining the investors.
Sources close to the investigation claim that a portion of the money collected in the Bhopal scam – most of it from gas victims and poor Muslim families – is suspected to have led to radical and terrorist activities in subsequent years, although this aspect is still being investigated.
The arrest comes weeks after Delhi Police busted an ISIS terror module in which two MBBS doctor brothers, who were planning suicide attacks in the national capital, were found to be sheltered and supported by Al Falah University authorities.
Faridabad University is under the scanner for allegedly providing safe haven to persons with terrorist links. Many fraud FIRs are being filed against Jawad Siddiqui across the country, with new complaints emerging in recent years as well.
The ED is now probing the money laundering angle in both the old chit fund scam and possible terror funding trails.
A senior Bhopal police officer, who was part of the original 1999–2001 investigation, said, “For 24 years, he evaded arrest while living openly and running a university. Many victims died waiting for justice. Now at least the process has started again.”
The case has reignited anger among survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, who say they were specifically targeted in the scam when they were most vulnerable.
As the ED tightens its grip, the emergence of Jawad Siddiqui from a chit fund fraudster who made away with crores to a university owner who is accused of harboring terrorists, has become one of the most astonishing stories of crime, theft and alleged jihad funding in recent times.
–IANS
SKTR/SKP