NIA chargesheets DEM chief Aasiya Andrabi

Four months after taking her custody, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday chargesheeted Aasiya Andrabi, the chief of banned Dukhtaraan-e-Milat (DEM), and her associates for "waging war against the country" using social media platforms.

Besides Andrabi, others who find their name in the chargesheet are her associates Sofi Fehmeeda and Naheeda Nasreen, who are accused of using various social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TV channels, including some in Pakistan, to spread "insurrectionary imputations and hateful messages and speeches against India".

Fehmeeda is Andrabi's Personal Secretary as well as DEM's Press Secretary while Nasreen is DEM General Secretary.

"Aasiya Andrabi and others, openly advocates secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India and its merger with Pakistan through violent means," the NIA said in a statement about chargesheeting them.

The NIA claimed Andrabi was "spreading seditious and insurrectionary imputations" against the government of India and "promoting ill-will and enmity" between different communities in India on ground of religion.​

Investigation has also established that she has close contacts with designated global terrorist Hafeez Saeed, who is head of Jamaat-Ud-Dawah (JuD) and Lashkar-E-Toiba (LeT), it said.

"She has used public platforms to incite youth of Kashmir to rise in armed insurrection against the Government of India with an object of achieving cessation of Kashmir from India and its merger with Pakistan," it said.

Fehmeeda and Nasreen were also claimed to have been "instrumental in the use of social media and other platforms to abet" waging of war against India. "They have collected funds to carry out terrorist activities of Dukhtaran-E-Millat," it said.

Andrabi, who was lodged in Srinagar jail after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court cancelled her bail in June, was brought to Delhi for questioning in July.

In April, the NIA had registered a case against them on the directions of the Ministry of Home Affairs, registered a case against them as well as the organisation, which is banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in April this year.