Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU/SRINAGAR, Sept 7: For second consecutive day today, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) carried out raids at 11 more places in Jammu and Kashmir and Gurugram in Haryana in connection with terror funding, hawala operations and cross-LoC trade irregularities and seized more documents and electronic gadgetry from all the places.
With this, the NIA has carried out raids at 37 places in three States including Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi and Haryana in the past two days in connection with ongoing probe into terror funding through hawala and cross-LoC trade funds.
NIA raided the house of senior separatist leader and Shia cleric Agha Syed Hassan in Budgam and 10 other locations including houses of other separatist leaders and their aides in the Valley as part of terror funding case probe.
NIA started a raid at the residence of Huriyat leader Aga Hassan in Budgam district at 4 a.m. Raids were carried out by teams of the Central probe agency on the houses of Ghulam Nabi Sumjhi, senior separatist leader of Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s Hurriyat group, Zameer Thakur, a close aide of Shabir Shah and Showkat Bakshi, senior leader of the JKLF.
The offices of the Chartered Accountants of Zahoor Watali and residences of suspect LoC Traders were also searched. They are suspected of fuelling secessionist and subversive activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
During searches, FDs worth over Rs 1 crore, and lots of incriminating material, suspect financial records, property-related documents and electronic devices have been seized.
NIA sleuths were assisted by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) during the raids.
An NIA team headed by Additional SP Biswas Kumar raided the premises of separatist leader Shabir Shah’s aide, Abdul Razzak Choudhary, 52, son of Haji Ahmad Ali at Gurha Barahamana in Bantalab area this morning and seized documents pertaining to his property etc.
Choudhary, who has been a close aide of Shabir Shah for the past quite some time, has been called by the NIA at its Headquarters in New Delhi on September 13 for questioning in connection with his links with Shabir Shah, who has already been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and was presently lodged in the jail. Later, the Enforcement Directorate had also arrested Mohammad Aslam Wani, another aide of Shabir Shah from Kashmir.
Sources said the NIA has seized documents pertaining to assets of Choudhary, who runs a shopping complex atop his bungalow. His kin is reportedly studying MBBS in Pakistan, they added.
According to sources, the NIA during searches found three weapons at the residence of Choudhary including one double barrel guns, a pistol and one .315 bore rifle. However, Choudhary showed licenses of all weapons after which the NIA team only noted the license numbers and didn’t seize them.
The NIA team concluded searches in the evening. SDPO Domana KV Singh, SHO RS Rana and Sub Inspector Rajesh Sharma provided police assistance to the NIA team during the searches.
The agency had raided 27 places in the Kashmir valley and in Delhi focusing mainly on traders, who allegedly have links with the funding case presently under probe by the NIA.
The agency had in July arrested seven separatist leaders and a prominent local businessman in connection with the probe into the funding to stoke unrest in the valley.
President of Kashmir Bar Association Mian Qayoom was questioned by the NIA for nearly seven hours on Wednesday.
Lawyers in the valley have decided to stay away from courts till Qayoom returns from Delhi.
Day after separatists announced to fly to Delhi and hold protest outside National Investigation Agency (NIA) headquarters on coming Saturday, police today arrested Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik and placed moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house detention.
Police sources said that Malik was arrested from his Maisuma residence in summer capital here and then taken to Central Jail. The sources said that Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was placed under detention at his Nigeen residence here. The chairman of hardline Hurriyat faction, Syed Ali Shah Geelani is already under house detention but presence of cops outside his Hyderpora residence was increased, sources said.
Police sources said that today’s crackdown against the separatist trio has nothing to do with their court arrest plan in Delhi outside NIA headquarters on September 9. They said that the police have had received information about scheduled ‘secret meeting’ between Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik and that is why police detained them.
In the meanwhile, the separatist leaders including Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik in a joint statement called for a shutdown in Valley on September 10 Sunday to protest scheduled visit of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.”By observing the strike, people of Kashmir will prove to the world community and the Indian leadership that by using military might against the people or harassing the leadership genuine and people’s movement in Kashmir cannot be crushed,” they said.
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate today opposed the bail plea of alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani in a city court, saying that he had a key role in bringing money from Pakistan for terror activities in Kashmir.
The probe agency, in its written response to Wani’s bail plea, said the investigation in a decade-old money laundering case involving Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah was at a crucial stage and Wani may threaten witnesses and destroy evidence if enlarged on bail.
Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma, who had denied bail to Shah on August 22, posted Wani’s bail application for arguments on September 14.
The ED’s response, filed through its special public prosecutor N K Matta, referred to the call records, e-mails and list of donors and alleged that they were linked to dubious transactions in Pakistan, London and Dubai.
Moreover, Wani was yet to be questioned for identifying the dubious offshore donors whose money routed into India through hawala channels, the probe agency claimed.
“The accused is suspected to be involved in assisting of channelising the illegal money sourced from foreign country Pakistan, avoiding banking channels to fund terror organisations in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. If released on bail, he may use his influence in pressurising/threatening the witnesses.
“There are serious allegations against the applicant and the probe is at a very crucial stage since call records leading to Pakistan, London, Dubai are to be scrutinised including mails and the donors who have paid the money to him are to be identified and examined,” the advocate said.
The agency submitted that if Wani was relased on bail at this juncture, “the entire effort of the respondents to unearth the larger conspiracy would be a futile exercise”.
“The present case discloses the commission of serious crime where the accused is involved in generation of huge proceeds of crime from various countries, including Pakistan, to carry out unrest in Kashmir and amassed huge wealth in the form of immovable and movable assets,” the counsel claimed.
In his bail application moved through advocate M S Khan, 36-year-old Wani has claimed that he was wrongly implicated in the case.
He has claimed that there was no material evidence that he had indulged in making money by selling the weapons or that he ever supplied money to any one, including Shah, before or after 2005.
He said he was innocent and there was no chance of him escaping from justice if granted the relief.
The court had earlier rejected the bail plea of Shah after the Enforcement Directorate said it was probing whether he had received money from “enemy countries” like Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.
Wani was arrested from Srinagar by ED on August 6 and is currently in judicial custody. Shabir Shah was arrested by the agency from Srinagar on July 26.
The ED action against the two was in pursuance of an August 2005 case in which the Delhi Police’s Special Cell had arrested Wani, claiming he had passed on Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
