Odisha: IB, Punjab Police Grill Kashmiri Conman Bukhari Over Terror & Drug Links

Bhubaneswar: With Kashmiri conman Sayed Ishaan Bukhari in 5-day custody of Odisha Police, officers of Intelligence Bureau (IB) are interrogating him over his link with suspected ISI agent Mufti Tariq Masood, sources said on Wednesday.

Punjab Police are also verifying Bukhari’s suspected link with the drug mafia as his uncle was arrested for smuggling 3 kg heroin a few years ago.

According to STF of Odisha Crime Branch, data from his seized phone revealed that he frequently spoke and chatted with Masood. A DVD, featuring Bukhari’s audio conversation with some terror suspects in Kerala about recruiting young men, has also been seized. “Though he denied links with any terror group, his antecedents are being verified,” an STF officer said.

He also chatted with a woman and a religious teacher in Pakistan, sources said.

While four phones and two other broken phones seized from Bukhari have been sent to the cyber forensic laboratory for examination, telecom companies have been asked to provide his call detail records for five SIM cards.

Bukhari, belonging to Handwara in J&K’s Kupwara district, was arrested from his rented house at Neulapur in Jajpur district on December 15 for allegedly posing as an Army doctor-cum-neurologist, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and a close associate of high-ranking NIA officials. He had been staying in Jajpur since 2018 after marrying a woman, a teacher by profession, whom he met on a social networking site, and their daughter.

Residents of Neulapur were of the impression that he was a doctor in the Indian Army currently posted in Hyderabad.

During the raid, at least half a dozen fake medical degrees from different institutes in India and abroad, including Cornell University in the US, Canadian Health Services Institute and Christian Medical College in Vellore, were also recovered from his possession.

He was also wanted by Kashmir Police in relation to a case of cheating and forgery and one non-bailable warrant is also pending against him, the sources added.