Crackdown on terror funding in J&K

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 23

With the Enforcement Directorate attaching the property of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali in Gurugram, crackdown by authorities has begun on people and organisations suspected in activities of terror funding, especially in Jammu and Kashmir.

The authorities from multiple agencies are on the job after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) identified 12 others in the May 2017 case relating to J&K terror funding. Watali is in Tihar jail since last year, sources in the government said today.

Two other accused, Kamran Yusuf and Javed Ajmed Bhat, chargesheeted for their role in stone-pelting and anti-India protests, are out on bail.

The government started seizing properties belonging to terror financers identified by the NIA, with the Enforcement Directorate initiating action to freeze and seize such assets. Ongoing investigations in the first phase determined and quantified assets valued over Rs 7 crore as proceeds of terror funding crimes.

Watali, the sources said, is a major conduit for funneling terror finances in the country and incriminating documents seized by the ED show he was receiving money from Hafiz Saeed, Syed Salahuddin, ISI and Pakistan High Commission at New Delhi and also is known to have important sources of Hawala financing operating out of Dubai.

The funds, the sources said, were made available to the leadership of Valley-based terrorist groups for providing the means to misguide and recruit local youth to terrorist ranks, including from madarsas and mosques. In addition, operational activities of terror groups were also being financed, including the attacks on security personnel, their camps and convoys, the sources said.

Money obtained through these channels was also being used by major secessionist formations, particularly All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), to arouse disaffection among people of J&K against the Government of India, the source said. In addition, the sources said, the funds were used to spread false information through media contacts, newspapers and social media.

In turn, these activities were used to instigate and lure misguided youth to resort to anti-India activities and stone pelting on security forces, sources said. Such funds were also used to finance institutions focused on subverting the local population, including through selected mosques, madarsas and other organisations.

The sources said in addition to Watali, 10 others under NIA probe include Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, Sayed Salahuddin, Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altf Ahmad Shah, Mohammed Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar, Mohadd Akbar Khanday, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmad Bhat and Nawal Kishore Kapoor, who is alleged to have remitted Rs 5.6 crore to Watali.