Indian linked to Mumbai blasts was issued fake Pak passport

Rezaul H Laskar

Islamabad, Jan 12 (PTI) Three Indian citizens, including
a man linked to the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, were
issued Pakistani passports by the country's consulate in the
US city of Houston, an anti-corruption court has been told by
a senior diplomat.

Pakistan's Consul General in Houston, Aqil Nadeem,
appeared as a witness in the accountability court in
Rawalpindi on Monday and confirmed that Pakistani passports
were issued by the consulate to Indian nationals Aziz Moosa,
Saleem Ali and Abdul Sadiq.
Nadeem told Judge Wamiq Javaid that the passports were
issued by the Houston consulate as had been alleged by the
National Accountability Bureau, the country's anti-corruption
agency, in its case against former Consul General Ghulam
Rasool Baloch and other persons.
He said cases of misappropriation of funds had also
figured in a report of the audit of the consulate's financial
records.
According to information provided to NAB by the US'
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Moosa was issued a Pakistani
passport in the name of Syed Nazar Ali, Saleem Ali in the name
of Karim Ali and Abdul Sadiq in the name of Sultan Abdullah.
An American passport bearing the name Syed Nazar Ali was
found after the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai and probe revealed
the man was actually an Indian national named Aziz Moosa.

Subsequent investigations showed that several passports
had been issued by the Pakistani consulate in Houston,
including one issued to Moosa.
A series of 13 bomb blasts in Mumbai on March 12, 1993
had killed 257 people and injured hundreds.
The attacks were coordinated by underworld mob boss
Dawood Ibrahim with help from Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency.
In March 2008, Pakistan's foreign ministry referred to
the NAB a report received from the FBI that about 300
passports had been issued by the consulate in Houston against
fake or incomplete documents.
NAB then filed a case against former Consul General
Ghulam Rasool Baloch, Assistant Consul General Mohammad Naeem
and travel agent Imran Lalpuri for issuing passports to Indian
citizens Aziz Moosa, Salim Ali and Abdul Sadiq.
NAB alleged that Lalpuri was working as a "front man" for
Baloch.
Baloch's lawyer S A Mehmood Sadozai argued in court
yesterday that the prosecution had merely relied on
information provided by the FBI and had not investigated the
case by themselves.
Replying to a question by the judge, NAB prosecutors said
they had examined FBI officials but did not record their
statements. The court has scheduled the next hearing for
January 19. PTI RHL