Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 8: The National Investigating Agency (NIA) today took its investigations in the terror funding scam close to top separatist and heads of two separate factions of Hurriyat Conference including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairman hardline faction and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman moderate group by questioning two sons of Geelani and a DySP, who handles security of Mirwaiz.
The NIA questioned Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Faheem Ali, who handles separatist leader and moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq’s security, in connection with the terror funding case registered by the Agency at its New Delhi Headquarters.
Ali is the first police officer from the State to be interrogated by the NIA. He was summoned by the NIA couple of days back and had been asked to appear before the Investigating Officers today morning, which he did.
Sources told the Excelsior that the NIA wanted to ascertain details from the DySP about the persons, who used to meet Mirwaiz individually and collectively.
“Being Incharge of the Mirwaiz Security, Ali might be knowing the persons, who used to see the chairman of moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference,” sources said, adding that it was in this context that the NIA questioned Faheem Ali.
The NIA today also questioned the sons of pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in connection with a terror funding probe allegedly involving Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, sources said.
While Geelani’s elder son Nayeem is a surgeon, the younger one, Naseem, is SKUAST Kashmir employee.
Nayeem is widely being seen as the one who would succeed his father as the leader of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate comprising pro-Pakistan hardline groups.
The brothers were questioned in connection with a terror funding case which has named Saeed, leader of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba, as an accused, the sources said.
The NIA registered the case on May 30, accusing separatist and secessionist leaders of working in collusion with terrorist groups.
The case related to raising, receiving and collecting funds through illegal means, including through hawala channels, for funding separatist and terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
It also included charges of causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and “waging war” against India.
The probe agency had conducted searches in several places in the State besides Haryana and the national capital.
Electronic devices and valuables worth crores of rupees were impounded.
It was the first time since the rise of militancy in the early 1990s that a Central probe agency conducted raids in connection with the funding of terrorist and separatist groups.
The NIA had on July 24 arrested seven separatist leaders – Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah ‘Funtoosh’, Ayaz Akbar Khanday, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Peer Saifullah (all from Geelani’s faction of Hurriyat), Shahid-ul-Islam (of the faction led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq), Nayeem Khan of the Jammu Kashmir National Front and Farooq Ahmed Dar aka Bitta Karatay of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
Another separatist leader Shabir Shah has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate.
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