NIA carries out fresh searches in Kashmir terror funding case

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted fresh searches at 12 locations in Jammu and Kashmir as part of its probe into whether the funding of separatists from Pakistani terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was being used to fuel violence in the valley.

The searches, which the central agency termed as follow-up action, were carried out in Srinagar, Kupwara, Handwara and Pulwama.

Those raided on Wednesday included a Srinagar-based advocate Mohammed Shafi Reshi and three relatives of prominent businessman Zahoor Watali, whose premises were searched in the first round of raids.

“A lot of incriminating material, suspect financial records and property-related documents and electronic devices including mobile phones, pen drives and hard drives have been seized during the searches. Some of the documents seized relate to receipt of money from suspect foreign sources and distribution of money so received to certain persons in Kashmir valley,” said NIA spokesman and Inspector General Alok Mittal.

Mittal added that suspects were being questioned about the incriminating recoveries.

The agency has so far arrested seven people - Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-inlaw Altaf Ahmed Shah, Ayaz Akbar Khanday, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Peer Saifullah (all from Geelani’s faction of Hurriyat), Shahid-ul-Islam (of the faction led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq), Nayeem Khan of the Jammu Kashmir National Front and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karatay of the J&K Liberation Front (R). The agency now plans to summon Geelani, Malik, Shabir Shah, and Farooq. Geelani’s two sons have already been questioned by the NIA in the case.