Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 24: A day after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir and designated retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director Dineshwar Sharma as the Special Representative for talks, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Syed Shahid Yousuf, son of globally wanted terrorist Syed Salahuddin, in connection with a 2011 terror funding case for allegedly receiving money from his father.
Syed Salahuddin, a resident of district Budgam in Kashmir is operating Hizbul Mujahideen outfit from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and fanning militancy in Jammu and Kashmir by sending armed terrorists to the State, apart from hawala money to fuel unrest in the Valley.
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While announcing the talks and appointing Dineshwar Sharma as the Interlocutor, the Centre Government had made it clear that there would be no let-up in NIA raids against separatists and others, who were receiving hawala money to boost terrorism and unrest in the Kashmir valley. The Centre has also stated that ‘Operation All Out’ against the terrorists would go on uninterrupted.
Sources said that 42-year-old Shahid, at present working as Village Agriculture Extension Assistant in the Agricultural Department of the Jammu and Kashmir Government, posted at village Soibugh, Budgam, was summoned to the NIA’s headquarters in New Delhi this morning and was arrested after questioning.
He will be produced before a designated NIA court tomorrow for taking police remand during which he will be subjected to questioning for his links with Aijaz Ahmad Bhat alias Aijaz Maqbool Bhat, a Hizbul Mujahideen member, originally resident of Solina Payeen, Srinagar, now residing in Saudi Arabia, who was reported to have sent funds for terror financing in Kashmir.
Sources said Shahid used to receive funds through a US-based international wire transfer company from Aijaz Ahmed Bhat, who is also an accused in the case but was absconding and putting up in Saudi Arabia.
Shahid was “one of several Indian contacts of Bhat” who had been in telephonic contact with him for receiving money transfer codes,” sources said.
The NIA claimed so far he had received a total of nearly Rs 4.5 lakh through eight international wire transfers.
The case, registered by the NIA in April 2011, relates to the transfer of money from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi, which the agency believed was used in funding terrorism and secessionist activities.
The NIA has so far filed two charge sheets against six people including G M Bhat, a close aide of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Siddiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani Liloo and Farooq Ahmed Dagga. All four are in judicial custody.
Two others — Mohammed Maqbool Pandit and Bhat — were also charge sheeted by the NIA but are absconding. An Interpol Red Corner notice has been issued against them.
Shahid’s father Mohammed Yusuf Shah — better known as Syed Salahuddin — was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Department of State in June this year.
Besides heading terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, he is the chairman of the United Jehad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of terrorist outfits operating in the Kashmir valley.
The NIA had also registered two other cases related to terror funding — one in November 2011 and the other in May this year.
The agency had filed a charge sheet against 10 people including Syed Salahuddin in the April 2011 case.
In the recent case, the NIA arrested 10 people including some close relatives and aides of Geelani.
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