In Jammu and Kashmir spreading terrorism has transformed into an industry with an annual inflow of estimated Rs 150 million filling the pockets of terrorist commanders and Kashmiri separatist leaders. This aspect of illegal money transactions popularly known as “hawala” shot the headlines when one Kashmiri Aizaz Hussain Khwaja, a Lashkar-e-Taiba conduit was arrested with Rs 5 million in cash soon after Mumbai blasts. He reportedly told his interrogators that he used to receive money from a Dubai based Kashmiri businessman along with instructions to whom the money was to be handed over, the sources said. He used to send money through human “couriers”, who in turn stashed it on the rooftop of state-run buses to Srinagar to avoid physical checking and surveillance, informed sources said. Khawja said he used to get instructions from mostly through the Internet and used to bring in money mainly to the Muslim separatist leaders and Lashker-e-Taiba terrorists based in Kashmir.
Hawala is a system through which money is transferred from one part of the world to another without following the normal banking channels. Though no one perhaps knows how and when this method of money transfer started.