Kashmiri separatist leader booked for fraud in Pakistan

In an unprecedented development, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has reportedly filed a graft case against Kashmiri separatist leader Altaf Bhat and 16 of his business associates for their alleged involvement in embezzlement of over Rs 100 crore in a cooperative housing scam.

The case was reportedly filed during an enquiry ordered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan over complaints from victims of the embezzlement. The FIA, according to media reports, has established that Rs 100 crore had been swindled by Bhat and other office-bearers of the Central Board of Revenue Employees Cooperative Housing Society (CBRECHS).

Bhat, a resident of Begh-e-mehtab in Srinagar, operates in Pakistan as a representative of the Hurriyat Conference and had switched over from militancy to political activism more than two decades back. In 1990s, he was a militant affiliated with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and operated in Kashmir under the code name of Tufail.

He is the brother of Salvation Movement founder and former Hizb commander Zaffar Akbar Bhat. Both the brothers are wanted by the Special Investigation Agency (SIA), a newly carved-out unit of Jammu and Kashmir Police, for allegedly selling MBBS seats in Pakistani medical colleges to Kashmiri students and using the money to spread unrest in the Valley.

On August 18, 2021, J&K police arrested six of the accused in the MBBS seat scam including Zaffar. The agency has established the charges and filed a challan in the designated court for Counter Insurgency Kashmir (CIK) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases in Srinagar.

During the late 1990s and early part of this century, Altaf’s and Zaffar’s elder brother and a property dealer Abdul Gani Bhat was killed in the group clashes between two factions of the Hizb led by Syed Salahuddin and Abdul Majeed Dar.

Zaffar had sided with Dar during the battle for Hizb’s leadership war between the two factions. However, Salahuddin’s loyalists allegedly killed Dar and his key associates including the dissident Farooq Mirchal.

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