Myanmar national arrested for helping terror group

A 55-year-old Myanmar national who had been living in India illegally for 40 years has been arrested here for assisting the HuJI terrorist group, police said on Tuesday.

Shaik Noor was taken into custody on August 21 from his residence at Abul Fazal Enclave in south Delhi.

Under the garb of selling Muslim skull caps, Noor used to facilitate members of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Yadav said.

Police said Noor was staying illegally in India for the last 40 years. HuJi is an Islamist group mostly active in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India since the early 1990s.

According to police, Noor, who belongs to a poor family, left Myanmar and settled down in Bangladesh with his parents when he was eight years old. He illegally migrated to India when he was 15.

"After a five-year stay at Bardhaman in West Bengal, he moved to Delhi and stayed at Sarai Kale Khan (in south Delhi)," Yadav said.

The official said Noor purchased 100 square metres of land in Hyderabad where he was wanted for charges under the Passport Act, Foreigners Act and Emigration Act.

"Noor is involved with a network which facilitates illegal migrants in getting Indian passports on fake addresses. He also obtained three Indian passports with different identities," the official said.

He said Noor had links with suspected terrorists in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar.

"We recovered two pocket diaries containing phone numbers of Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia," the official said.

Noor told police that he along with his wife, son and others was arrested for circulating fake currency in Chennai on September 5, 2008. He was in jail for more than two years.

Police from Hyderabad took Noor on a four-day transit remand to know about his relationship with Pakistan-based militant Mohmmad Nasir, who had sought his help to infiltrate into India.

Nasir has links with a Pakistani militant, Abdul Jabbar, Yadav said.

Nasir and five others -- Faizal Mahmood (Bangladesh), Joynal Abedin (Bangladeshi and brother-in-law of Noor), Masood Ali Khan, Sohail Parvez Khan and Zia-Ur-Rehman -- were arrested by Hyderabad police on August 14.