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| NIA to dig out more links of separatists in terror funding case | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 5: With National Investigating Agency (NIA) getting its police station in Jammu and Kashmir, it is set to question more, the Valley's so called separatist leaders and other suspects in connection with a terror funding probe.
Sources told early times that the NIA will speed up the questioning suspects and so called separatist leaders regarding their involvement in raising, collecting and transferring funds through Hawala and other channels for terror funding in Kashmir. "We were facing lot of difficulties in detaining/ questioning suspects/ accused in absence of our own office in Jammu and Kashmir. Now officially we have got our police station in the state, we will be able to speed up our investigations regarding the terror funding cases," one of the top officials of the NIA said and added that it is also good that there is no political interference what so ever in the state.
This is for the first time since the rise of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s that a central probe agency gets police station in the state.
Regarding the irregularities in cross-LoC trade, the official said that NIA is also probing the case and had carried out searches on traders at trade facilitation centres at Salamabad in Kashmir region's North Kashmir's Baramulla district and Chakan-da-bagh in Poonch district of the Jammu region.
The NIA is probing all aspects of funding of separatist leaders and use of these funds in fuelling the unrest in the Valley.
Sources said that more investigation and evidence could help nail the role of Hurriyat Hawaks Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq as well as Yasin Malik in funding violent protests in the Valley at the behest of Pakistan-based masterminds.
In June this year, NIA had carried out searches at 14 places in Kashmir and eight places in the national capital in connection with terror funding. Around eight hawala dealers and traders in the national capital were also raided.
Six Hurriyat members were arrested from Srinagar and one was nabbed from Delhi. Among those arrested, six of them including Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah (also known as Altaf Fantoosh), Geelani's close aides Naeem Khan, Mehraj-ud-din Kalwal and Pir Saifulla, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar, and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq's close aide and spokesperson Shahid-ul-Islam were arrested in Srinagar. Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' was arrested in Delhi.
In August, the NIA, while tightening its noose around separatist leaders, questioned Geelani's sons, Naeem and Naseem two times within a fortnight.
NIA officials also conducted searches at 12 locations in Srinagar, Baramulla Kupwara, Pulwama and Handwara, which included the residence of a relative of a ruling PDP MLC.
The locations raided included properties of relatives of Zahoor Watali, a prominent businessman in the Valley and a known Hurriyat supporter.
Following the raid, NIA arrested Watali, who was considered to be one of Geelani's top aides. After his arrest the NIA had claimed that a lot of incriminating material, suspect financial records, property-related documents and electronic devices including mobile phones, pen drives and hard drives were seized during the searches. However the Delhi High Court last month granted bail to him.
The court had said there was no prima facie material to show that 70-year-old Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali was involved in the conspiracy.
Swooping down on traders and alleged hawala dealers, the NIA on 6 September carried out searches at 27 places in various parts of the Valley and Delhi and seized nearly Rs 2.20 crore in cash in raids.
Diaries pertaining to contacts of hawala operators/traders, ledger books containing accounts of cross-border LOC trade of various trading companies were recovered. Some details of bank accounts of Jammu and Kashmir were also recovered, a NIA spokesman had said.
The NIA had also issued summons to a Kashmir university PhD student, the head of a traders body and two Hurriyat leaders to appear before it in connection with the case.
Independent Jammu and Kashmir MLA was also summoned by the NIA for questioning on 28 September. |
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