A court in Delhi on Friday granted the National Investigation Agency 10-day custody of Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi – the chief of Dukhtaran-e-Milat, or Daughters of the Nation – and her associates Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen. The agency had sought custody for 15 days.
The three women, who are accused of delivering hate speeches and endangering the sovereignty and security of India, were produced before District and Sessions Judge Poonam Bamba, PTI reported. The NIA took the women into custody earlier on Friday. They were brought to Delhi from the Srinagar Central Jail in Jammu and Kashmir, PTI quoted an unidentified official as saying.
The NIA registered a case against Andrabi, her associates and the Dukhtaraan-e-Milat in April on the directions of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The Dukhtaran-e-Milat is banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
The agency registered a case in Delhi against Andrabi on June 29, two days after the Ministry of Home Affairs ordered that new charges be filed against her.
“The central government has received information that one Asiya Andrabi and her associates, namely Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen, are actively running a terrorist organisation named as Dukhtaran-e-Millat which is proscribed under the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967,” the NIA said in its First Information Report. “They are using various media platforms to spread insurrectionary imputations and hateful speeches that endanger the integrity, security and sovereignty of India.”
The agency has accused the pro-Pakistan leader and her associates of using “written and spoken words that bring into hatred and contempt apart from exciting disaffection towards the government of India”.
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