The Resistance Front funding Kashmiri youth to fuel anti-India agenda, says NIA

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found that The Resistance Front (TRF) -- a proxy of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) -- has been financing local youth in Kashmir and "inciting them" to carry out anti-India activities.

“Ongoing investigation has revealed that local youth were being instigated into anti-national activities and funded by the terror outfits,” an NIA officer said, adding that the probe has also uncovered a foreign trail of funds being channelled into the Valley.

The TRF, recently designated a global terrorist organisation by the United States, was behind the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu & Kashmir's Pahalgam that left 26 civilians dead. Intelligence inputs suggest the group was floated to mask LeT’s direct involvement in attacks across the Valley.

After the Pahalgam attack, the case was handed over to the NIA, which in the past two months has gathered multiple evidence linking the attackers directly to Pakistan.

On Wednesday, the agency searched two locations in Srinagar and Handwara connected to two men earlier arrested by the J&K Police, seizing crucial documents related to the case.

The over­ground workers (OGWs) have been under the NIA’s scanner for their involvement in supporting terrorist activities such as facilitating terrorists, collection and distribution of sticky bombs or magnetic bombs, IEDs, funds, narcotic substances, and arms or ammunitions.

According to official sources, terror oputfits like TRF, supported by their leaders in Pakistan, have been conspiring to commit acts of terror and violence by radicalising local youth and mobilising overground workers, to disturb peace and communal harmony in J&K.