NIA to probe Geelani on funds
Hardline separatist leader is accused of receiving funds from LeT chief Hafiz Saeed
New Delhi, May 19: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is probing the role of Lashker-e-Taiba chief Hafeez Mohammed Saeed and hardline Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in subversive activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
The NIA named the two in its Preliminary Enquiry (PE), which precedes the filing of a case. It also named Naeem Khan, who was seen on television during a sting operation purportedly confessing to receiving money from Pakistanbased terror groups.
The others named in the PE were Farooq Ahmed Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’ and Gazi Javed Baba of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. The NIA team arrived in Srinagar on Friday to question those named in the PE and to collect documentary evidence against them.
The LeT chief is based in Pakistan. In a PE, the NIA can ask those named in the case to appear before it but cannot force them to do so, or arrest them.
The NIA team will be reviewing evidence collected in connection with the burning of schools last year after the Hizbul Mujahideen’s poster boy, Burhan Wani, was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8. The NIA’s PE alleged that the separatists were receiving funds from the LeT chief to carry out subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, including pelting security forces with stones, damaging public property and burning schools and other government establishments.
Meanwhile, Congress termed as “extremely serious” the allegations that Hurriyat leaders received funds from across the border.
AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi also hit out at the Centre saying there has never been such a rapid and tragic decline in governance in the Valley. — PTI