Kerala. The Customs Department affirmed that the accused in the gold smuggling case have underworld connections. The Customs probe is also extending to the underworld after the NIA uncovered the links of KT Ramees, the mastermind of the gold smuggling, with the most wanted underworld criminal Dawood Ibrahim.
The NIA, had said that there was a need to probe whether main accused K T Ramees and another accused Sharafudeen had links with the gang of Dawood Ibrahim. The NIA had recovered pictures of controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and KT Ramees holding a gun from Swapna Suresh’s mobile phone.
The accused had challenged the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in the smuggling case, arguing that smuggling comes under economic offence and no terror angle was involved in the case. Countering that, the NIA said some of the accused in the case have links with anti-national forces.
Elaborating its point, the NIA said accused No. 5 in the case KT Ramees and accused No. 13 M. Sharafuddin had visited Tanzania a number of times and met Dawood’s contact Feroze ‘Oasis’.
Earlier, Ramees was caught with smuggled revolvers at the Kozhikode airport. But later he got away, saying he was a member of the shooting association and remitted fine.
It also said one of the arrested Muhamad Ali was an accused in chopping off the palm of a college teacher who prepared a controversial question paper but was later acquitted by a court in 2015. The NIA said he had close links with some of the fundamentalist outfits conspiring against the country. This is the first time that the anti-terror law was invoked in a smuggling case.
Following this, the customs also came to the conclusion that the accused had an underworld connection.
