New Delhi: More than a year after the suspension of National Investigation Agency (NIA) superintendent of police and two others on charges of corruption, the Union home ministry reinstated SP Vishal Garg and gave a clean chit to two juniors. Garg has been transferred to New Delhi from Lucknow and made incharge of training with “immediate effect”, said people aware of the matter.Garg and two other NIA officials were placed under suspension last year for allegedly demanding Rs 2 crore from a Delhi-based businessman for not naming him in a terrorism funding case involving Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed. NIA ordered a probe against Garg and two other officials, Nishant and Mithilesh, then posted with its intelligence and operations wing.The allegations levelled against the trio were found to be prima facie correct but could not be substantiated despite a year-long inquiry, said officials. Garg was earlier the chief investigation officer of the 2007 Samjhauta and Ajmer blast cases that resulted in acquittals of Swami Assemanand and others. The train blast in February 2007 had led to the death of 68 people, mostly Pakistanis.According to NIA officials, the probe report was examined by the home ministry, which is the cadre controlling authority for IPS and NIA officers. Set up in the aftermath of the 26/11attack, Garg, from the Border Security Force, was among the first officers to be permanently inducted in the NIA. The case involving the Mumbai attack mastermind was registered by the agency in 2018 and investigations were later assigned to Garg.The first information report named Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) deputy chief Shahid Mahmood for hatching a conspiracy around 2012 to create sleeper cells and logistics bases in Delhi and Haryana under the garb of religious work such as construction of mosque, madrasa education and financial assistance for marriage of poor Muslim girls.After lodging the case, the NIA arrested Mohammad Salman and Mohammad Salim, both residents of Delhi, and later Mohammad Hussain Molani, a resident of Nagaur in Rajasthan. Till now, NIA has filed three charge-sheets against the accused persons including Hafiz Saeed.
