NIA charge-sheets close associate of JeM chief Masood Azhar

PTI

New Delhi, November 15

National Investigation Agency (NIA) has charge sheeted Dilawar Iqbal - a right-hand man of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi - and Kupwara-resident Mohammed Ubaid Malik for allegedly conspiring to disturb the peace and communal harmony of Jammu and Kashmir by attacking security forces, officials said on Wednesday.

In the charge sheet filed in a special court in Jammu, the NIA alleged that Dilawar Iqbal was a close associate of Masood Azhar and had indoctrinated and motivated Ubaid Malik to join the JeM militant ranks.

Muhammad Dilawar Iqbal, a resident of Abbaspur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir who goes by many aliases including Maaz Khan Kashmiri and Azad Kashmiri, delivered incendiary speeches to incite youths in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to conduct terrorist acts, the agency said in a statement.

The agency has alleged, “Dilawar would incite youth having a militancy background to pursue Jihad by sharing with them inflammatory audio clips and videos as well as images of Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, showing the latter preaching radical Islam.”

“He would also send videos related to encounters in the Kashmir Valley and provoke youth to pick up arms,” an NIA spokesperson said.

The agency has been probing the terror conspiracy case since June 21, 2022 after taking it up on a suo motu basis. The case pertains to the conspiracy hatched by Pakistan-based terrorist organisations to ‘unleash violent terrorist attacks in J-K with sticky bombs, IEDs, and small arms’ to carry out terrorist attacks and violence in the Union Territory.

“It involves radicalisation of local youth and mobilisation of over ground workers of newly floated terrorist groups such as The Resistance Front, United Liberation Front Jammu & Kashmir, Mujahideen Gazwat-ul-Hind, Jammu & Kashmir Freedom Fighters, Kashmir Tigers, and PAAF.

“These outfits are affiliated to proscribed terrorist outfits like Laskhar-e-Toiba, JeM, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Al-Badr, and Al-Qaeda,” the agency has alleged.

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