A Delhi court on Wednesday sent former Jammu and Kashmir MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid to judicial custody for two weeks in a case related to funding of terror activities in the Kashmir Valley, PTI reported.
Popularly known as Engineer Rashid, the independent MLA represented the Langate seat in North Kashmir in the Assembly that was dissolved last year. He was the first major politician from Jammu and Kashmir to be arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the terror funding case.
District Judge Yashwant Kumar sent Rashid to judicial custody after the NIA produced him in court on the expiry of his custodial tenure. The NIA said that further interrogation of Rashid was not required. Advocate Ankit Sarna, representing Rashid, told the court there was no need for further judicial custody as the interrogation had been completed.
The NIA had arrested Rashid on August 9. The agency claimed in the court on Wednesday that Rashid had failed to give any convincing answers to the questions it put to him.
The former MLA’s name had come up during the investigation of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who the NIA had arrested earlier in the year for allegedly supplying money to terror groups and separatists in the Valley.
The agency had arrested Kashmiri separatists Shabir Shah, Asiya Andrabi, Masarat Alam Bhat and Yasin Malik in the case in June. The NIA claimed that separatist leaders confessed to receiving funds from Pakistan. The NIA has filed a chargesheet against 12 others, including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, in the case.
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