Sanjeev Pargal/
Fayaz Bukhari
JAMMU/SRINAGAR, June 4: For second consecutive day today, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) conducted simultaneous raids in Jammu and Srinagar to unearth the nexus of hawala funding to separatists, Over Ground Workers (OGWs) and others to fuel militancy and unrest in the Valley even as the raiding teams were reported to have recovered foreign currency apart from yesterday’s seizure of cash, gold and other items including documents.
The NIA has frozen bank accounts and lockers of some of the separatists and traders, whose houses and business premises have been searched in the biggest ever crackdown to unearth hawala and terror funding in the Kashmir valley from Pakistan and some other foreign nations during the past two days. Nearly 40 locations have been raided and searched since yesterday by large number of NIA personnel, assisted by the Enforcement Directorate sleuths with the protection of paramilitary and police personnel.
Sources told the Excelsior that Pakistan and its sponsored militant outfits, mainly Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen had not only used New Delhi and Haryana based hawala operators to pump money to the separatists, OGWs and other influential persons to keep the pot boiling in the Valley but they had also used cross-LoC trade between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) through Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad routes to generate the funding.
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In Jammu, the NIA team today conducted simultaneous raids at residence and business premises of Raghav Aggarwal at Gandhi Nagar and Ware House respectively. Raghav was involved in cross-LoC trade through Poonch-Rawlakote route on the name of his firm M/s GM Traders, sources said, adding that he was dealing in the business of dry fruits, spices and some karyana items.
The NIA teams landed at his house at 15 C/C Gandhi Nagar and shops at Ware House simultaneously and scrutinized documents pertaining to the cross-LoC trade, bank accounts, lockers, cash and stock etc. The searches lasted nearly seven hours and took place in the presence of family members of Aggarwal.
However, no one was arrested during the raids, sources said but the NIA managed to lay hands on certain vital documents, which they took with them to New Delhi in the evening.
The NIA continued its raids on the residential houses of separatists and businessmen including those doing trans-Line of Control trade in Kashmir.
NIA raided house of separatist leader Qazi Javed Baba at Khanyar in old city Srinagar and spokesman of Hurriyat Conference (G) Ayaz Akbar at Maloora area of Srinagar. The raids were conducted in morning and they searched the documents and other incrementing documents.
They also raided house of Dilshada wife of Tariq Ali Khan of Zaffaran Colony, who is doing cross-LoC trade. The NIA officials searched for documents related to her trade. They also raided two shops in Parimpora Fruit Mandi belonging to a businessman who is also doing cross LoC trade.
The trans-LoC trade is already under NIA radar and it is believed that it is used for funding militancy and separatists in Kashmir. The modus operandi is that some traders export less quantity of goods but, in return, receive large quantity of good items from PoK traders and excess money is used for funding militancy. Under the barter system, the traders had to import goods of the same amount which they had exported to other side. In some cases the goods received from PoK are under priced and excesses money thus generated is used for funding separatists and militancy.
During the course of searches, Pakistani currency (a few thousand) and currencies belonging to the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been found and seized apart from other incriminating material.
Yesterday the NIA raided houses of Altaf Fantoosh, the son-in-law of Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Shahid-ul-Islam, leader of Awami Action Committee led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Zaffar Akbar Bhat. They also questioned chairman Jammu and Kashmir National Front (JKNF) Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karrate and Javed Ahmed Baba alias ‘Gazi’ of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.
Yesterday the raids were also conducted at the residence of prominent businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali. Nazir Mir and Farooq Ahmad Wani, Gas distributors Shamsabad Bemina, Trader Raja Zahoor, Businessman Mohammad Sultan Chadinu, businessman Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Nengro, Ajaz Ahmad Bhat of Wanabal and a Gas dealer who is brother of separatist leader Farooq Ahmad alias Bitta Karatey.
Sources said entire seizure made by the NIA teams during past two days in Srinagar, Jammu, Haryana and New Delhi would be collected at the NIA Headquarters in New Delhi, where a First Information Report (FIR) in funding of separatists and others through hawala channels has been lodged, and scrutinized by the experts.
The NIA had lodged a separate FIR in hawala funding through cross-LoC trade in Jammu and Kashmir about three months back and subjected several traders, who were doing business on Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad route, to questioning at Poonch and Uri and later at its headquarters in New Delhi.
Separate investigations in this case were going on but the NIA reportedly had clues that hawala money generated through cross-LoC route had also been used to fund separatists and OGWs to sustain militancy and generate unrest in the Valley.
The NIA had yesterday raided 32 locations of separatists and business in Kashmir, Haryana and New Delhi for funding received by separatists groups through various hawala channels for fueling unrest and militancy in the Valley.
In New Delhi, the NIA had raided the residence of top businessman Manav Arora at posh Greater Kailash locality. It had also searched houses and other business premises of Dharmesh Goyal and Kumar Giri at Khari Baoil in Delhi. While Arora is a prominent dry fruit businessman, Goyal and Giri deal with spices and dry fruits.
The NIA sleuths also carried out raids at the residence and business concerns of noted trader Pyau Manhari at Sonepat and Kundli in Haryana while residence and business premises of two Kashmir based dry fruit merchants, who have been staying in New Delhi for the past 10 years, were raided at Rohini, New Delhi.
The NIA also conducted raids at Ballimaran in Old Delhi, where some transactions of hawala money had taken place. The name of Ballimaran earlier also figured during the investigations as it was from this area that some traders had dispatched hawala money to separatists and OGWs in the Valley to fund militancy and unrest in Kashmir, sources pointed out.
Significantly, sources said majority of the businessmen, whose residence and business premises were raided in New Delhi and Haryana simultaneously today along with Kashmir separatists and others, were dealing in the business of dry fruits, spices, apples, shawls etc, the items majority of which are grown or manufactured in Kashmir.
“This made it easy for the traders to have frequent inter-action in Kashmir and, in turn, send hawala money there,’’ sources said.
The NIA had yesterday recovered unaccounted account books, Rs 2.5 crore in cash, gold and letterheads of banned terror groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen during raids conducted at 32 locations.
Sources said the investigations sought to probe the entire chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who threw stones at security forces, burned down schools and damaged Government establishments.
Bank accounts and lockers revealed during the probe have been frozen.
In yesterday’s raids, 85 gold coins and jewellery worth Rs 40 lakh were recovered.
Phone diaries, mobile phones and documents such as ‘katchcha’ (informal) receipts and vouchers had been seized from alleged hawala operators, financiers and office bearers of separatist groups.
This is for the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s that a Central probe agency carried out raids in connection with terror funding to separatists.
In 2002, the Income Tax department had executed searches against some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
However, no criminal case was registered then.
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