SRINAGAR/JAMMU: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the funding of subversive activities in Kashmir on Sunday conducted fresh raids in the residences of separatist leaders and other locations in the State and seized foreign currency, NIA officials said.
“During the searches, a few thousand Pakistani rupees and currencies belonging to UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as incriminating documents were found and seized,” an NIA spokesperson said.
NIA conducted fresh searches at seven more locations belonging to separatists, traders and hawala operators suspected of terror funding in J&K.
Searches were conducted in Srinagar, Jammu and Gurgaon. During the course of searches, several bank accounts have been detected, and Pakistani currency and currencies belonging to UAE and Saudi Arabia have been found and seized, apart from a lot of other incriminating material like correspondence with jailed anti-national elements, suspicious transactions and mobile phones.
Prominent among those raided by the NIA include Tariq Ahmed Khan, ex-President of the LoC Traders Association, Farooq Baggu and another house of Zahoor Watali at Gurgaon was also searched. These all are being questioned.
Raids were conducted in the residence of Ayaz Akbar, spokesperson of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and Peer Saifullah, another of Geelani’s close aides, the officials said.
A similar exercise was undertaken at the Jammu residence and warehouse of a businessman, who the NIA sleuths believed was involved in a cross-border trade scam.
“NIA team members on Sunday morning arrived Jammu and raided the residential premises of a trader at Gandhi Nagar and Nehru market areas,” intelligence sources said. NIA as per sources raided Ghulam Mohammad (GM) traders in Nehru Market area.
“The team seized some documents,” they said and added that the shops raided are Dry fruit and karyana stores.
Sources further said that the NIA team later went to Kamal Aggarwal’s House at 15 C/C, Gandhi Nagar to probe the matter.
“Some incriminating documents and other details were allegedly recovered from the premises,” they said.
“More raids will be in offing and would remain continue for some more days,” sources added.
Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh had yesterday said that the Central and State Governments are not going to spare anybody who will be at fault in terror funding case.
He said that peace will soon be restored in the Kashmir valley.
The NIA alleges that since the Cross-Line of Control trade, at Uri in Kashmir and Chakan-da-Bagh in Jammu, was based on a barter system, some businessmen “under- or over-invoiced” their bills, and the difference in payment was later used for promoting subversive activities in the valley.
An NIA spokesman in Delhi said in continuation of yesterday’s searches at multiple locations in Kashmir, Delhi and Haryana, the NIA launched fresh searches today at locations belonging to secessionist and separatist leaders and traders, suspected of hawala activities and terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The searches are continuing and the concerned people are being questioned,” the spokesman said.
In its effort to clamp down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the valley, the NIA yesterday raided 29 locations.
They recovered unaccounted account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.
The NIA spokesman said the investigation sought to probe the entire chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who threw stones at security forces, burned down schools and damaged government establishments.
Phone diaries, mobile phones and documents such as ‘katchcha’ (informal) receipts and vouchers had been seized from alleged hawala operators, financiers and office bearers of separatist groups. Among those raided were businessman Zahoor Watali, Raja Zahoor Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate and Nayeem Khan.
The NIA had registered an FIR earlier and was camping in the valley for few days before beginning its raids.
This is for the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s that a central probe agency carried out raids in connection with terror funding to separatists.
In 2002, the Income Tax department had executed searches against some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
However, no criminal case was registered then.
While no separatist leader from the valley has been named in the FIR registered by the NIA, organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Milat and Lashker-e- Taiba, besides Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul Dawah Hafiz Saeed, have been mentioned.
The raids were carried out following the questioning of three separatist leaders — Nayeem Khan, who was seen on television during a sting operation purportedly confessing to receiving money from Pakistan-based terror groups, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’ and Gazi Javed Baba of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, in the national capital last month.
The sleuths believe the separatists were receiving funds from Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed.