| J&K terror funding case: NIA all set to chargesheet Yasin Malik, 4 other top separatist leaders | | | Agencies
New Delhi, Sept 22: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is all set to chargesheet Yasin Malik and four other top separatist leaders in the 2017 Jammu and Kashmir terror funding case.
Three other separatist leaders Shabir Shah, Asiya Andrabi and Masarat Alam Bhat were also arrested in connection with NIA probe into a terror funding case involving Jama'at-ud-Da'wah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Besides separatist leaders, former MLA Engineer Rashid is the first mainstream politician to have been arrested and named by the NIA in its chargesheet.
According to top-level sources in the agency, the second supplementary chargesheet will be filed in the first week of October. Sources said, "This will be the most crucial chargesheet of NIA as per the profile of leaders."
The NIA team headed by an IG, has been painstakingly gathering evidence in the case. The anti-terror agency has raised many eyebrows by using open source videos and interviews in the chargesheet.
Sources, however, said that there is enough evidence running into a thousand pages for the chargesheet, which will be filed in the Patiala House Court.
According to NIA sources, Yasin Malik admitted that he was instrumental in bringing together the disparate factions of Hurriyat conference and formed the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL). The JRL spearheaded the violent agitations in 2016 in the Kashmir Valley, by issuing 'protest calendars' leading to economic shutdown for over four months.
The evidence showed Yasin Malik and JRL and Hurriyat Conference Geelani Group collected funds from business community as well as certain other sources, ensuring economic shutdown and violent protests continue to disrupt the daily life of common citizens in the Valley.
These calendars had detailed instructions on picketing, blockage of routes, suspension of public transport and exhorting people to play 'azadi taranans' (songs).
According to the NIA, Shabir Shah had received Rs 10 lakh from hawala operator Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, a co-accused in the case.
Masarat Alam Bhat, the general secretary of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, played a significant role in the 2010 Kashmir stone pelting rallies and subsequently in the unrest. In the chargesheet, Masarat Alam is reported to be termed as the poster boy of stone pelters and violent agitations in the Valley.
The woman separatist leader Asiya Andrabi, revealed to theNIA that she had been collecting funds and donations from foreign sources and Duktaran-e-Milat had been organising protests by Muslim women in the Valley. Asiya Andrabi was confronted with evidence including funding of educational expenses of her son in Malaysia from 2011 onwards through foreign remittances made by Zahoor Watali.
Similarly, Engineer Rashid, former MLA from Langate, is reported to have had links with Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed and Zahoor Watali for disruptive activities. Rashid is said to have made last ditch efforts to send out SOS messages to top cops of Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) from Delhi to avoid his arrest but to no avail.
Sources said that the investigators have been burning the midnight oil in the NIA headquarters to make a comprehensive chargesheet. Sources also said that Zahoor Watali's bail petition has been a test case for the agency as the petition was heard for a record 22 times in the Supreme Court.
"To the agencies relief, Watali was not granted bail," sources said. Since the profile of the leaders in the second chargesheet is significant with both national and international scrutiny in the case, the agency wants to make a fool proof case.
The case was registered in 2017 for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Valley by way of pelting stones on security forces, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, the probe agency said in the FIR.
Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based JuD chief, the front of Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused.
The FIR also names organisations such as the two factions of the Hurriyat, one led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an all-woman outfit of separatist.
The main chargesheet in the case was filed in January 2018 against 12 accused.
Meanwhile the agency mentioned the names of separatists Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in the case, even called the latter for questioning, but did not name them in chargesheet.
The case has grabbed eyeballs of the Home Ministry as the case was the beginning of crackdown on separatists by the Centre, leading up to announcement on August 5, when the Centre abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution. |
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