Court sends Salahuddin’s son to 10-day NIA remand

A National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Friday sent Syed Shakeel Yousuf to 10-day remand of the central probe agency till September 10.

Shakeel is the son Syed Salahuddin, who is the chief of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

Shakeel was arrested from Rambagh area of Srinagar during a night raid on Thursday in a reported terror funding case.

The NIA claims Shakeel, who works as a lab technician at super-speciality SKIMS hospital in Srinagar, used to receive funds through a US-based international wire transfer company from Aijaz Ahmad Bhat, another accused in the case who is absconding and based in Saudi Arabia.

The case, registered by the NIA in April 2011, relates to transfer of money from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi, which the agency believed was used in funding militancy and secessionist activities.

Last October, the NIA had arrested Shakeel’s brother Syed Shahid in a money laundering case.

He is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since and was chargesheeted in April this year. The NIA had claimed that Shahid had received about Rs 4.5 lakh so far through eight international wire transfers.

While terming the arrest of Shakeel by the NIA as an “act of vengeance”, Sheikh Jameel ur Rehman, PoK based United Jihad Council (UJC) secretary general, said “the arrest was a cowardly and revengeful act which won’t break the resolve of Salahuddin.”

“The fictitious chargesheet of the NIA can’t hoodwink anyone,” he said, according to the statement issued from Muzaffarabad, PoK.

Mohammed Yusuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin is the chief commander of Jammu and Kashmir's largest indigenous militant outfit, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

He is also the chairman of the UJC, an umbrella group of militant outfits operating in the valley.

For more than two decades, Salahuddin is in Pakistan, from where he is running the militant activities in Kashmir.

Last year, he was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Department of State.