Continuing their crackdown on alleged militancy financers, security agencies have identified 13 people, including HizbulMujahideen founder Syed Salahuddin, Hurriyat leaders and businessmen, who are allegedly providing funds to militants and stone-pelters at the behest of Pakistan spy agency ISI, officials said Sunday.
The government of India has started seizing propertiesbelonging to militancy financiers in a big way, they said.
13 individuals and their properties have been identified bythe National Investigation Agency (NIA) and action has been initiated, theofficials said.
“Individuals identified during these investigations havebeen found providing money to all major militant groups like LeT andHizbulMujahideen as also Hurriyat leaders, separatists and stone-pelters inJammu and Kashmir,” a senior government official said.
Funds were provided to the leadership of Kashmir-basedmilitant groups for allegedly misguiding, motivating and recruiting localyouths to militant ranks, he said.
Operational activities of groups, including attacks onsecurity forces, camps and convoys, are also being financed, the official said,adding that money obtained through these channels are being “used by majorsecessionist formations, especially the Hurriyat Conference”.
These funds are used for “maintaining Hurriyat’s topleadership and a massive propaganda machinery to arouse disaffection among thepeople of Jammu and Kashmir against the government of India”.
They are also being utilised to spread false informationthrough media contacts, newspapers and social media, the official claimed.
The official said these are “in turn used to instigate andlure misguided youths to resort to anti-India activities, violent streetprotests and stone pelting on security forces at encounter sites”.
Extensive use of such funds is being made to financeinstitutions such as select mosques, madrasas and organisations like recentlybanned Jamat-e-Islami J&K for focusing on subverting locals, anotherofficial said.
In the first strike, action was initiated to attach a plushbungalow of Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali in Gurgaon, the official said. He is, atpresent, lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
Watali is allegedly a major conduit for funnelling militancyfinances into India, the official said.
Documents seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED)indicate that he was receiving money from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)founder Hafiz Saeed, Salahuddin, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and thePakistan High Commission here, the official claimed.
“Watali is known to have important sources of Hawalafinancing operating out of Dubai. Besides him, another 10 leaders were broughtinto the multi-agency action on terror funding,” the officials said.
The ED has zeroed in on proceeds of such crime and begunaction to freeze and seize such assets, the officials said.
The ongoing investigation in the first phase has determinedand quantified assets valued at over Rs7 crore as proceeds of terror fundingcrimes, the official said.
The 13 identified individuals include Muhammad Yusuf Shahalias Syed Salahuddin, who through Hizbul, has been actively involved increating unrest in Kashmir and other parts of India, according to a documentprepared by security agencies.
Being a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, Salahuddin has a widenetwork of local sympathisers, who act on his instructions and collect fundssent by him to fuel secessionist activities, it said.
Hafiz Saeed, chief of Pakistan-based Jamaat-ul-Dawaa, andother separatist leaders of the state, including members and Hurriyat cadre,have been raising, receiving and collecting funds domestically and from abroadthrough various illegal channels like Hawala, for funding separatist andmilitancy activities in J&K.
The document said Aftab Ahmad Shah alias Fantoosh, aTehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) founder member, was spokesperson and legal advisor tothe Hurriyat (Mirwaiz faction).
During a search at his residence in Srinagar, NIA seizedvarious incriminating documents and during interrogation, Shah confessed thathis charter of duties included monitoring incidents, issuing statements,arranging meetings and conferences.
Shah, son-in-law of TeH separatist leader Syed Geelani, wasclosely associated with JeI (J&K).
The 13 individuals also include MuhammedNayeem Khan, FarooqAhmad Dar, AkbarKhanday,MehrajuddinKalwal, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Saifullah and Nawal Kishore Kapoor
Khan, chairman of National Front, an organisation affiliatedto Hurriyat, was part of the Muslim Jaanbaaz Force and earlier involved invarious militant activities, the document said.
Dar was JKLF-R chairman and is a militant involved inalleged criminal and anti-national activities since 1990, the document reads.”He received arms training in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK) in 1989-90″.
Khanday is a Jamaat-e-Islami member and trusted lieutenantof Geelani. “He knew of anti-India protests in the Valley”.
Kalwal, a former militant trained in PaK, is a key fundraiser for stone pelters, the document alleges. “He collects funds on behalf ofHurriyat and spearheads protests”, the document said.
Bhat, a former Hizbul militant, went to PaK for armstraining and was involved militancy cases. “He is a trusted aide of Geelani andwas aware of systems of fund collection and distribution by the Hurriyat leaderto operatives, who indulged in anti-India activities. He has visited thePakistan High Commission here with Geelani several times”, it said.
Kapoor, Watali’s close associate, remitted Rs 5.6 crore to Watali for which he has not been able to produce any document.