Jundal sent money twice while in Saudi: Chargesheet

Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative and a key 26/11 Mumbai attack handler Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal sent money to India at least twice after the Mumbai attack, the chargehseet filed against him in another case in Mumbai says.

Jundal is an accused in Aurangabad arms haul case in Mumbai. According to the police, Jundal had gone to Dhaka in May, 2006 and from there he reached Pakistan on a Pakistan International Airlines flight without any valid document.

Pakistani authorities 'kicked' him to Saudi Arabia later due to heightened international pressure to act against the perpetrators of 26/11 attacks.

According to the statement of one of the relatives of Jundal, who is a witness in the arms haul case, he had met Jundal while on a pilgrimage to Haj in November 2010. The witness told police that Jundal gave him 4,100 Saudi Riyals, to give it to a person in his native Beed, in Maharashtra.

Jundal also gave a note, which said `Please forgive me for the inconvenience caused to you and accept the money'. "While the note got destroyed, I spent the money. I told this to Jundal and said I will return the money but Jundal asked me to keep the money," said this witness.

A month later, Jundal had met another relative at a hotel in Saudi Arabia. Jundal gave him around 4,000 Riyals and asked him to go to Aurangabad and give it to the brother of Sayyed Ahmed, one of the accused in arms haul case.

This witness could not find Ahmed's brother at Aurangabad. "When I informed Jundal, he asked me to give the money to another person who runs a grocery store." But the storeowner later told the witness that Ahmed's brother had refused to take the money, saying "we are already under mental trauma...I don't want this money".

On May 8, 2006, a Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad team chased a Tata Sumo and an Indica car on Chandwad-Manmad highway and arrested three persons and seized 30kg of RDX, 10 AK-47 assault rifles and 3,200 bullets. The Indica was allegedly driven by Jundal, who managed to give police the slip, and fled to Bangladesh.

Jundal's trial will be clubbed with that of the 21 others who were arrested earlier in this case.