The National Investigation Agency on Sunday claimed that separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir received foreign funds and used them for personal gains like amassing property or to pay for education of the family members, PTI reported.
Kashmiri separatists Shabir Shah, Asiya Andrabi, Masarat Alam Bhat and Yasin Malik were arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with a terror funding case earlier this month. The four accused were taken into police custody for interrogation, according to The Hindu. The agency claimed that separatist leaders confessed to receiving funds from Pakistan.
The agency issued a statement on Sunday saying Asiya Andrabi, the leader of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat or Daughters of the Nation, was questioned on her son’s educational expenses in Malaysia being incurred by Zahoor Watali, who was arrested in a terror funding case.
“During interrogation, Asiya Andrabi admitted that she had been collecting funds and donations from foreign sources and Duktaran-e-Milat had been organising protests by Muslim women in the valley,” the press statement alleged.
Separatist leader Masarat Alam, who is regarded the “the poster boy of stone pelters and violent agitations in Kashmir valley”, allegedly told NIA investigators that agents in Pakistan routed the funds through hawala operators, which were transferred to separatist leaders including Syed Shah Geelani. Alam also said there were rifts in the Hurriyat Conference regarding collection and use of funds, the agency said.
The NIA claimed that Malik confessed that the Joint Resistance Leadership, an alliance of separatist leaders, and Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s faction of the Hurriyat Conference “collected funds from the business community as well as certain other sources and ensured that economic shut down and violent protests continue to disrupt the daily life of common citizens in the Kashmir Valley in 2016”, The Hindu reported.
The National Investigation Agency had registered a case in May 2017 against members of the Jammat-ud-Dawa, Duktaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and other separatist leaders in the state for raising, receiving and collecting funds to fuel separatist and terrorist activities, conspiracy to cause disruption in the Kashmir Valley and for waging war against India.
The agency has named 13 people in the chargesheets including leader of the Jammat-ud Dawah Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven separatist leaders, two hawala operators and some people involved in stone pelting incidents.
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