A senior NIA official wishing not to be named told IANS: "Three officials have been suspended over the allegation of demanding bribe for shielding a businessmen in a terror funding probe involving FIF linked to LeT chief."

The official said that the suspended officer include one SP rank officer, one NCRB office, equivalent to the ASP rank and an Assistant Sub Inspector.

The SP was earlier the chief investigation officer of the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast while the other two are from the intelligence and operations wings of the NIA, the official said, adding they had carried out searches against a businessman from North Delhi.

The names of the officials and the businessman are being withheld for now. The action comes after the report of the departmental probe. The anti-terror probe agency has transferred them out after a Delhi-based businessman accused them of blackmailing him in a terror funding case.

The businessman had complained that the officers sought Rs 2 crore from him so as not to name him in the case involving the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Saeed, the agency had said on August 20. According to the NIA officials, the NIA got the complaint in July regarding the SP and two junior officers who were investigating the FIF.

The NIA last year registered a case against the FIF's deputy chief Shahid Mahmood and others for hatching a conspiracy around 2012 to create sleeper cells and logistics bases in Delhi and Haryana under the garb of religious work. 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.

In July, the NIA secured the deportation of Mohammad Arif Gulambashir Dharampuria, a trader from Valsad in Gujarat, from the United Arab Emirates.

The NIA has filed two chargesheets against the accused including Saeed in connection with that case. In the recent chargesheet filed on July 18, the agency named a 43-year-old Molani for hatching a criminal conspiracy and under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

According to NIA, Deputy chief of FIF Mahmood tasked his associate Mohammad Kamran, a Pakistani national based in Dubai, for re-routing funds from Pakistan to Dubai and further to India through hawala channels. "During this preparatory work, the target persons were intended to be used for creating sleeper cells and hideouts," said the NIA, adding Kamran identified a few Indian nationals in Dubai and one person in India, Mohammad Salman, for this purpose.