New Delhi, Apr 10:
Tightening its noose around separatists of Jammu and Kashmir, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday arrested JKLF chief Yasin Malik and questioned Mirwaiz Umer Farooq again in connection with a terror financing case, officials said here. Malik was brought to the national capital Tuesday evening after a special NIA court in Jammu gave the go-ahead for his custodial interrogation by the probe agency, they said. He was produced before a special court which remanded him in the NIA custody till April 22. The NIA spokesman said in a brief statement that Malik, who was already under detention under the Public Safety Act, was arrested in a terror funding case.
Malik, whose Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front was recently banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), was shifted to Tihar jail Tuesday evening under police protection from Jammu’s Kot Balwal prison. He is also facing two CBI cases which includes kidnapping of Rubaiya Saeed, daughter of then Union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, in 1989, and the killing of four IAF personnel in 1990. In a related development, the Mirwaiz was questioned for the third consecutive day by the NIA. The questioning revolved around funding of his party, Hurriyat Conference and Joint Resistance Front, an amalgam of his moderate Hurriyat Conference as well as the hardline faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and JKLF. There were reports that both the separatists were confronted with each other but there was no confirmation officially about it.
The NIA registered a case on May 30, 2017 against separatist and secessionist leaders, including unknown members of the Hurriyat Conference, who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs. The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala transactions, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Valley by way of pelting stones on the security forces, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, the probe agency said in the FIR. Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front for the banned LeT, has also been named as an accused in the FIR.
