A lookout notice has been issued against former Jammu and Kashmir minister Babu Singh who has gone underground after his name figured as a suspect in a hawala transaction case here, officials said Wednesday.
Singh’s link to the case surfaced after the police Thursday arrested Mohmmad Shareef Shah (64) and seized Rs 7 lakh of alleged hawala money from him.
The seized cash was allegedly meant to support the insurgency in the Jammu district, the police said.
“We have issued a lookout notice for Babu Singh,” a senior police officer told PTI, adding that the Jammu senior superintendent of police issued the notice.
The J&K Police has also informed airport authorities at various places so that Singh does not flee the country, they said the police are focusing on various areas in different states to track Singh down. On Friday, Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh had said that the politician is absconding and will be traced soon.
“After his questioning, a complete picture will emerge in the case which is linked to Pakistan and separatism,” he had said, adding that some people have already been arrested, and the money trail indicates that the fund was meant for subversive and anti-national activities.
Shareef Shah, a resident of south Kashmir, was arrested with the Hawala money on March 31 in the Gandhi Nagar area of Jammu on Thursday.
Shah had disclosed that he was tasked by Jatinder Singh, aka Babu Singh, chairman of the Nature-Mankind Friendly Global Party and a former minister in the PDP-Congress coalition government in Jammu & Kashmir, to collect money from a person named Omer in Srinagar.
Shah had come to Jammu after receiving the money from Omer. He revealed the names of his local and overseas associates — Javed and Khatib from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Farooq Khan from Toronto.
Shareef Shah is also the admin of a secret WhatsApp group having members from various nations, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
S Gurdev Singh from Jammu, Sidhant Sharma from Kathua and Shrief Sartaj from Jammu were detained for questioning. A case has been registered, and an investigation is in progress.
Babu had initially launched the International Democratic Party and then contested and won the 2002 assembly elections from Kathua.
Subsequently, he was inducted as a minister in the Congress-PDP coalition government.
