NIA conducts raids at nine Kashmir locations in terror conspiracy case

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 22

In a massive crackdown in the Jammu & Kashmir terror conspiracy case involving Pakistan-backed banned terrorist organisations and their offshoots, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday raided nine locations across the Valley.

The case relates to a terror conspiracy involving plans by the banned terrorist organisations and their newly floated offshoots to unleash violence in J&K by using sticky bombs, IEDs and small arms.

Several digital devices containing large volumes of incriminating data and documents were seized during the raids, conducted on the premises of hybrid terrorists and overground workers (OGWs) linked with the newly-formed offshoots and affiliates of proscribed terrorist outfits such as Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Al-Badr, Al-Qaeda, etc. The premises of sympathisers and cadres of these organisations were also searched extensively, agency sources said.

NIA teams cracked down on these properties and conducted elaborate searches on Monday morning as part of its investigation into the case registered by the anti-terror agency suo moto on June 21, 2022.

Backed by their Pakistan-based mentors, these outfits have been conspiring, in both physical and cyber space, to carry out terror acts aimed at disturbing the peace and communal harmony in J&K by radicalising local youth and mobilising overground workers, NIA sources said.

The outfits include The Resistance Front (TRF), United Liberation Front Jammu & Kashmir (ULFJ&K), Mujahideen Gazwat-ul-Hind (MGH), Jammu & Kashmir Freedom Fighters (JKFF), Kashmir Tigers and others.

All of these are affiliated to banned terrorist organisations and were floated as frontal outfits to carry out the nefarious agenda of the main militant groups after the latter were banned by the Government of India. The digital devices and other data recovered during the searches are being scrutinised to expose and dismantle the complete conspiracy, the NIA said.

The Central agency had in December 2022 simultaneously raided 14 locations in various parts of south Kashmir in the same case. Sources said the NIA has carried out raids at over 80 locations in the last two years. The Central agency has claimed to recover “incriminating material and digital devices” in the case.

Pak-backed terror outfits involved

Backed by Pakistan-based mentors, the terror outfits involved in the case have been conspiring, in both physical and cyber space, to carry out terror acts aimed at disturbing the peace and communal harmony in J&K by radicalising local youth and mobilising overground workers, NIA sources said.

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