New Delhi:
The investigation into the Delhi Red Fort car blast expanded Thursday to include Javed Ahmed Siddiqui, the founder and managing trustee of the Al-Falah University in Faridabad, which employed two of the three main suspects – Dr Shaheen Saeed and Dr Mujammil Shakeel.
The university faces a separate Enforcement Directorate investigation into its funding.
Siddiqui’s ‘vast corporate network’ and an old criminal case – in which an associate and he were accused of fraud worth Rs 7.5 crore and jailed for three years – are among the focal points of the parallel investigation, sources told NDTV.
Meanwhile, the university’s legal advisor, Mohd Razi, denied all fraud charge allegations against Siddiqui, including the Rs 7.5 crore claim, and also told NDTV he had “no information” about the recruitment of Shakeel. Hiring (and vetting of new hires) is the Vice-Chancellor’s job, Razi said.
Siddiqui, born in Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow, is on the board of nine companies, all of which are connected via the Al-Falah Charitable Trust, the body that oversees the university’s functioning.
These nine firms span the education, software, financial services, and energy sectors and, in the first potential red flag, most of them share the same registered address – a building in Delhi.
The Al-Falah University building in Faridabad
That address is the Al-Falah House in Jamia Nagar in the city’s Okhla neighbourhood.
The nine companies are:
- Al-Falah Investment (the first company, started in 1992)
- Al-Falah Medical Research Foundation (at which Saeed, Shakeel, and other accused were ’employed’ and where they met to plan a potential 32-car serial bomb terror strike)
- Al-Falah Developers Pvt Ltd
- Al-Falah Industrial Research Foundation
- Al-Falah Education Service Pvt Ltd
- MJH Developers Pvt Ltd
- Al-Falah Software Pvt Ltd
- Al-Falah Energies Pvt Ltd
- Tarbia Education Foundation
Most of these firms were active till 2019, after which they were either shut down or became inoperative.
The Al-Falah Medical Research Foundation, however, thrived it began in 1997 as an engineering college and now operates on a 78-acre campus. Now, however, it faces an inquiry by the NAAC.
READ | Al-Falah University Gets Notice After Its Doctors Caught In Terror Web
Incidentally, the Al-Falah Building is also the office of the Al-Falah Charitable Trust.
The old criminal case that has resurfaced now was registered at Delhi’s New Friends Colony Police Station. The complainant accused Siddiqui and others of floating fake investment schemes that encouraged people to deposit money in the Al-Falah group of companies.
The allegation was that Siddiqui and his associates persuaded people to invest in deposits in an Al-Falah company and then forged documents to show these had been turned into shares.
The gathered funds of Rs 7.5 crore were then diverted to the accused’s personal accounts.
Siddiqui was arrested in 2001. In March 2003 the Delhi High Court rejected his bail plea, pointing to forensic evidence that suggested signatures on the share certificates were forged. It wasn’t till February 2004 that he eventually secured bail, but that was after agreeing to refund defrauded investors.
As recently as January 2020 Delhi Police raided the Okhla office.
This was in connection with more complaints Siddiqui had defrauded investors, most of whom were from economically vulnerable Muslim households and were encouraged to invest in ‘halal’ schemes.
Delhi Red Fort car blast
Thirteen people were killed after a white Hyundai i20, stuffed with explosive substances, including ammonium nitrate fuel oil, exploded at a busy traffic junction near the Red Fort.
READ | 32 Cars In Red Fort Terrorists’ Chilling Plot For Babri Revenge: Sources
The car was driven by Umar Mohammad, a terrorist linked to the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. The investigation so far has revealed a frightening plan – 32 cars were reportedly part of a multi-target, serial bomb attack across the Delhi region as ‘revenge’ for the Babri Masjid demolition.
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