Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, May 20: National Investigation Agency (NIA) today questioned three separatist leaders in connection with its probe into the role of Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in subversive activities.
The NIA team, headed by the Additional Director General, had asked Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate and Gazi Javed Baba to appear before it. Besides these three, NIA has named Saeed and Geelani in the PE, which precedes the filing of a case.
The three separatist leaders were questioned separately by the team of NIA, which named them in its Preliminary Enquiry yesterday.
The NIA team will be gathering evidence collected by the Jammu and Kashmir Police about the burning of schools as Khan had claimed that the educational institutions were targeted as per the plans hatched from across the border.
The schools were targeted last year after banned Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8.
The NIA’s PE alleged that the separatists were receiving funds from the LeT chief to carry out subversive activities in the Kashmir valley, including pelting security forces with stones, damaging public property and burning schools and other government establishments.
The NIA took cognisance of the news item related to a recording of conversations between a TV reporter and leaders of separatist groups operating in the Kashmir valley in this regard.
And in the wake of a sting operation conducted by a New-Delhi based news channel showing him ‘admitting’ to taking funds from Pakistan, hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani today suspended the membership of Nayeem Khan’s party from the separatist amalgam.
In a statement issued here, Geelani said he has suspended National Front headed by Nayeem Khan from basic membership of Hurriyat Conference. “In pursuance of special power vested in me as chairman and until the clarification of all related issues come to fore, the membership will remain suspended. It is my moral duty and as a supreme head of forum I am obliged to fulfill assigned duties,” he said.
“The suspension will come into force with immediate effect in Srinagar and Hurriyat chapter of ‘Azad Kashmir’,” said Geelani, adding that he had summoned all the constituent members including Nayeem Ahmad Khan to facilitate him to keep his view point before executive body today but police did not allow leaders to hold a meeting at his residence in Hyderpora here.
A team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) yesterday landed in Srinagar to investigate the funding to separatists by Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Earlier, Khan, who was the provincial president of the hardline Hurriyat, said in a press conference that the video was “doctored” and challenged the channel to run his full video instead.
“Sometimes I am wearing a jacket, sometimes a waistcoat, sometimes other clothes and sometimes there is a three years old video to which my voice has been added and taken out of context,” Khan said.
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