Geelani’s grandson under NIA radar in terror funding

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), probing funding to Kashmiri separatists and militants, has summoned hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani’s grandson, Anees-ul-Islam for questioning.

Sources said Anees has been asked to appear for questioning at NIA headquarters in New Delhi on April 29 and a summon has been sent to him. He is a son of incarcerated Altaf Shah alias Fantoosh, who was arrested in 2017 by the NIA along with several other separatist leaders in an alleged terror funding case.

Anees was appointed as a research officer in Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Complex (SKICC), a subsidiary wing of the J&K Tourism in November 2016, at the height of summer unrest in Kashmir, that followed the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen poster boy Burhan Wani.

A controversy has erupted after it came to fore that Geelani’s grandson had been appointed out of turn, which was later denied by Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP alliance which was ruling the state then.

The Criminal Investigation Department wing of the J&K Police had also given a satisfactory and non-involvement report in favour of Anees.

Earlier, the NIA has questioned both the sons of Geelani – Naeem and Naseem – several times in the terror funding case. Naeem, a doctor by profession, is presently posted at JLNM hospital Srinagar while Naseem works at an agricultural university in Srinagar. Both of them are under the NIA scanner for alleged terror funding.

The anti-terror probe agency is investigating a case related to terror funding in Kashmir through hawala channels. The NIA has arrested nearly a dozen people, including seven separatist leaders, a high-profile businessman and a son of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salah-Ud-Din.

The separatists while responding to NIA raids, allege New Delhi is frustrated to the extent that they frame and arrest the “pro-freedom leaders and activists on the pre-planned psychological crackdown so that they surrender and stop voicing the sentiments of their nation.”

They claimed that the raids being conducted by NIA and the hype and sensationalism around it just goes on to show the “desperate attempt by the government of India to vilify and discredit the leadership and in turn discredit the people's freedom movement.”