Kolkata, June 14: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unearthed fresh evidence indicating the direct involvement of Azad Mullick, a Pakistani national arrested in Kolkata in April, in a major racket involving fake Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), in addition to earlier charges of passport fraud and hawala operations.

According to ED sources, the agency has launched a deeper investigation following specific leads that point to Azad’s key role in facilitating fake EPICs, especially for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.

Mullick is already facing two serious allegations — involvement in a fake Indian passport syndicate and operating an underground hawala network from Kolkata.

The latest findings suggest that Azad had managed to penetrate local administrative networks to obtain and distribute forged voter IDs.

The ED has formally sought details of 78 EPIC cardholders from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.

Investigators suspect that at least 55 of these cards were arranged by Azad, with recipients primarily from the bordering districts of North 24 Parganas and Nadia.

The CEO’s office has, in turn, asked the district magistrates of these areas to verify the identities of the listed individuals, and a comprehensive report is expected to be submitted to the ED by the end of this month.

During interrogation, Azad reportedly admitted to being listed as a voter in the Dum Dum-Uttar Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas — one of the seven assembly segments under the Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat.

He is believed to have voted in both the 2021 and 2024 elections. The ED has requested the CEO’s office to furnish documents based on which Azad procured his EPIC.

The issue of foreign nationals acquiring Indian voter IDs has emerged as a politically charged matter in West Bengal, particularly ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.

In a related development on Friday, the CEO’s office reportedly removed Newton Das — a person holding dual citizenship of India and Bangladesh — from the electoral rolls.

Das, who was active in the student movement in Bangladesh last year, had been registered as a voter in the Kakdwip Assembly constituency of South 24 Parganas district.

Azad’s case, however, is even more complex. When the ED arrested him in April, seized documents initially indicated that he was a Bangladeshi national who had acquired Indian documents — including a passport — using fake credentials.

But on April 29, the ED informed a special court in Kolkata that Mullick had confessed to originally being a Pakistani citizen. He reportedly admitted to first obtaining Bangladeshi citizenship through forged documents, and subsequently using the same modus operandi to acquire Indian identity documents.

Washington, June 14: US President Donald Trump has instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to halt raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, by significantly shifting the direction on mass deportation campaign, according to a media report.

According to The New York Times report, the move was made as the mass deportation campaign hurt industries and constituencies that President Trump doesn’t want to lose, which is the central focus of his Presidency.

The report suggested that Tatum King, a senior ICE official, had sent an email on Thursday to regional leaders of the ICE department issuing the directive.

“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants, and operating hotels,” read the message.

However, the email mentioned continuing investigations which involve “human trafficking, money laundering, and drug smuggling into these industries.”

Additionally, it directed the agents not to take anyone into the custody of “noncriminal collaterals,” referring to people who are undocumented but have no criminal records.

The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed the recent developments.

“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The directive came after agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal law enforcement agencies raided several locations in southern California, which sparked mass protests.

Earlier this week, a protest against immigration raids in Santa Ana, 50 km east of downtown Los Angeles, resulted in several injuries and arrests after demonstrators clashed with federal authorities and local police.

The protest was triggered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids during the day across Santa Ana, the capital of Orange County, with a population of over 300,000.

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento told the Orange County Register newspaper that the immigration officials appeared to have targeted day labourers waiting for work.

At least 200 protesters, waving flags and carrying signs, gathered outside a federal building in downtown Santa Ana, which houses ICE offices and other federal department offices, to protest the raids that occurred.

Later, the situation escalated and took a chaotic turn after law enforcement reportedly shot at the crowd.

California sued the Trump administration after the President ordered the deployment of 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles without the state’s permission in response to the protests.

Nearly 400 people in immigration protests have been arrested or detained by the Los Angeles Police Department since Saturday, media reports said.

The arrested and detained include 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people arrested for assault and obstruction, quoting the media News.

On the first night of curfew starting Tuesday night in the US second largest city, there were 203 arrests for failure to disperse and 17 arrests for curfew violation, said the Los Angeles Police Department in a press release.

Guwahati, June 14: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a chargesheet against three individuals associated with the banned insurgent group United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) for their alleged involvement in planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Guwahati during the 2024 Independence Day celebrations.

The accused — Paresh Baruah, Abhijit Gogoi, and Jahnu Boruah — have been charged under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UA(P) Act), and the Explosive Substances Act.

The charges were filed on Friday after an extensive investigation into the terror plot aimed at destabilising the region and spreading panic among the public, the NIA said in a statement on Saturday.

According to the NIA, the trio was linked to an IED planted at Dispur Last Gate, Guwahati, in what was part of a larger ULFA-I conspiracy to execute multiple IED blasts across Assam.

The group aimed to disrupt Independence Day celebrations and instil fear through coordinated acts of terror.

“The trio were found linked with the IED planted by the terror outfit at Dispur Last Gate, Guwahati, Assam, as part of the ULFA (I) conspiracy to trigger multiple IED blasts across Assam, including at Dispur Last Gate, to disrupt the I-Day celebrations last year,” the NIA stated.

The NIA had taken over the case in September 2024. Its investigation found that the planted IEDs were intended to cause death, injuries, and property damage, with the broader objective of threatening India’s unity, integrity, security, and sovereignty.

“The IEDs had been planted to cause death/injuries to persons and/or loss/damage/destruction to property, with the intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of India, and to strike terror among the people of the country,” the NIA added.

Further investigations into the case are currently ongoing.

The 2024 Independence Day celebrations in Assam were clouded by serious security concerns after ULFA-I sent emails to several media outlets in the state, claiming to have planted bombs in 24 different locations.

The emails provided the precise locations of 19 IEDs, while details for the remaining five were not disclosed.

As a precaution, security forces and police personnel who were previously deployed for parades and ceremonial duties were reassigned to assist in the search for explosives.

Bomb disposal squads were also rushed to various sites to detect and neutralise the threats.

ULFA-I claimed in its emails that the devices would not detonate due to a “technical fault” and even appealed to the public to help locate them.

However, security agencies took no chances and launched an intensive operation across the state.

The Assam Police recovered 11 IEDs from multiple locations.

Among them, four explosive devices were found in high-risk areas of Guwahati, including Pan Bazar, Dispur, Gandhi Mandap, and Satgaon.

None of the IEDs detonated, and no injuries were reported.

On September 21, 2024, the Assam Police and NIA jointly arrested 15 individuals, including three women, from various locations across the state in connection with the planting of IEDs.

Later in December, the agency arrested a key ULFA-I operative tied to the same case.