Terror funds: NIA secures confession of 2

Srinagar, September 19

The National Investigation Agency has secured recorded confessional statements on the flow of money, especially from Pakistan, from two persons accused in a case related to the funding of terror activities in Kashmir, NIA officials said today.

The statements made before a judicial magistrate has tightened the case against separatists who allegedly funded stone-throwers and spread unrest, NIA officials said. While one of the accused has been formally arrested, the other was detained and subsequently let off after he said he would turn approver, the officials said, declining to divulge their names. The former, arrested on July 24 after his house was raided, approached NIA sleuths for recording his confessional statement.

He gave a detailed account of how funds were sent from Pakistan-based terror organisations as well as its external snooping agency ISI to separatists based in the Valley, the officials said.

The other person who has recorded his confessional statement is a close aide of pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. A confessional statement is recorded before a judicial magistrate. The accused confirms in it that he or she is giving a statement without any pressure from the probe agency.

The entire process is videographed and no investigation officer is present on the court premises during the proceedings. In case of retraction later, the agency can file a case of perjury. The NIA has arrested 10 persons so far in connection with the alleged funding of terror activities case. The list includes Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of Geelani, and noted businessman Zahoor Watali. Geelani’s aides Ayaz Akbar, who is also spokesperson of the hardline separatist organisation Tehreek- e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah have been also been arrested.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 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-Toiba and other outfits and gangs, officials said.

The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Valley by way of throwing 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 of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, has been named in the FIR as an accused. The FIR also named the two factions of the Hurriyat, the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat. — PTI