J&K TERROR FUNDING PROBE: NIA RAIDS ON, LOC TRADE ON RADAR

NEWDELHI:The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was on Wednesday morning searching 11 locations in Srinagar and five in Delhi as part of its probe into charges of funds from Pakistan being used to stoke unrest in the Kashmir Valley.

Those raided include alleged Hawala dealers in Delhi and businessmen involved in crossborder trade in Jammu and Kashmir. “These raids have been conducted mainly in connection with our probe into the cross-LoC trade,” NIA chief Sharad Kumar said.

The Line of Control trade, launched in 2008 as a confidencebuilding measure between India and Pakistan, has pitted the NIA against the J&K government.

The anti-terror investigation agency is in favour of discontinuing the trade but chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has said she wouldn’t allow it.

“We have got fresh leads that suggest that the cross-LoC trade between J&K and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir has become a major source of funding of separatist and violent activities in the Valley,” Kumar said.

Among the six people whose homes and businesses were searched in Srinagar was Imran Kawoosa, who also runs a prominent private school in the city.

Of the 1,200 people allowed to trade, 50 are on NIA radar for manipulating the value of goods, sources in the agency said. They inflated or undervalued goods and gave a part of the money to the separatists, sources said.

The LoC trade is a duty-free barter of goods produced in either J&K or PoK. The exchange is carried out at two trade centres — at Salamabad in Uri and Chakkan-da-Bagh in Poonch.

NIA claims rules are flouted, as “third-party origin goods” such as California almonds were being brought from PoK.

It had in June registered an FIR against unnamed Hurriyat leaders, all-woman separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat and associates of Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba for getting money from LeT’s Hafiz Saeed.