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Terror funding: NIA carries out fresh raids in Kashmir

Last Updated 23 July 2019, 13:40 IST

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), probing alleged terror funding cases in Jammu and Kashmir, on Tuesday carried separate raids in Srinagar and south Kashmir’s Pulwama district at residence and office of some businessmen dealing with cross-LoC trade.

Sources said NIA sleuths raided the residence of one Ghulam Ahmad Wani alias Bardana at Achgoza Keller, Pulwama, 32 km from here, early morning. Wani, reports said, is dealing with fruit business, and was also associated with cross-LoC trade which stands stalled after India banned it following February 14 terror attack in Pulwama, in which over 40 CRPF men were killed.

Sources said that the NIA also carried raids at Parimpora Fruit Mandi in Srinagar. “At both the places, the premier probe agency sleuths have seized some vital records related to terror funding,” they claimed.

The anti-terror probe agency is investigating cases related to terror funding in Kashmir through hawala channels. The agency has carried out a series of raids on separatists, their sympathisers and some businessmen in the last more than two years.

The agency claimed to have recovered several incriminating documents, including letterheads of different terrorist organisations as well as high-end communication systems, during these raids.

During the investigation conducted so far, the NIA has charge sheeted 13 accused, including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven second-rung separatist leaders, two ‘hawala’ conduits and some stone-pelters.

The crackdown by the NIA on alleged terror funding to separatist leaders and their sympathisers has caused a significant dent into their activities in Kashmir. Incidents of street protests, violence, local recruitment of youth into militancy in Kashmir have reduced drastically this year compared to previous years due to the “effective” action of security forces and probe agencies against separatists and their sympathisers.

While most of the separatist leaders, including pro-independence JKLF chief Yasin Malik, have been put behind the bars by the NIA in alleged terror funding case, the activities of Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Geelani and moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwiaz Umar Farooq have also been curtailed. Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Altaf Funtosh and Mirwaiz’s trusted lieutenant Shahid-ul-Islam are in Tihar jail since July 2017.

Even the chairperson radical Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of Faith), Asiya Indrabi along with her associates Fehmeeda Sofi and Nahida Nasreen were also arrested and put behind the bars in Delhi’s Tihar jail. Recently the NIA attached Andrabi’s house in Soura on the outskirts of Srinagar.

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(Published 23 July 2019, 05:50 IST)

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