Twenty-five assets linked to Hafiz Sayed, four to Shabir Shah, and other immovable facilities in the name of over a dozen people linked to militant outfits will soon be attached or confiscated by investigative agencies as part of a crackdown against Jammu and Kashmir-based separatists and militant operatives, official sources said.
Multiple agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), theNational Investigative Agency (NIA) and the Income Tax Department have collateddata and are set to unleash criminal action against individuals and groups whorun “militancy and stone-pelting machinery” against government forces in theKashmir Valley, they said.
While the ED has identified 25 assets “linked” toSayed and his associates for attachment under the Prevention of Money LaunderingAct (PMLA), a similar action will be conducted to freeze four properties ofJ&K based separatist Shabir Shah.
They said the ED has identified assets worth about Rs 7crore as part of its money laundering probe in militancy financing cases.
While it has recently attached a Gurgaon-based asset ofZahoor Ahmad Shah Watali worth Rs 1.03 crore, the probe agency will undertake asimilar action against his assets based in Srinagar, Jammu, Delhi, Dubai,London and an ancestral home in Handwara (Kupwara district) of J&K.
“Individualsidentified during these investigations have been found to be providing money toall major groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen as alsoHurriyat leaders, separatists and stone pelters in Jammu and Kashmir,” a seniorofficial said.
The central probe agency, under the Union Finance Ministry,has filed a total 13 FIRs under the PMLA to probe militancy financing instancesin the Kashmir Valley and it has attached assets worth over Rs 29.84 lakh inthese cases. Similar action in five more cases is in progress, they said.
The NIA, the federal agency to probe militancy cases, hasalso identified 13 people and their assets for initiating criminal actionagainst the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and subsequent attachment,officials said.
The action of attachment and seizure will be followed byfiling of charge sheets and prosecution complaints by these probe agenciesbefore competent courts across the country, they said.
They claimed that “extensive” use of such dubiousand militancy-linked funds is being made to finance institutions focused onsubverting the local population through selected mosques, madrasas and outfitslike Jamat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir, which was recently banned by the Uniongovernment.
The Income Tax department, in the last few weeks, has carried out searches against some groups and individuals and is conducting their assessments under anti-tax evasion and benami charges, they said.