Widening the range of crackdown on alleged international terror funding in Kashmir, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested United Jehad Council (UJC) chairman and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin’s son Syed Shahid Yousuf in connection with a 2011 terror funding case for allegedly receiving money from Saudi Arabia purportedly sent by his father through a conduit.
An NIA spokesman said 42-year-old Shahid, a low-ranking functionary of State Agriculture Department, had travelled to New Delhi on Monday after he was summoned by the NIA.
He was taken into custody shortly after he presented himself at the NIA headquarters.
He will be produced before a designated NIA court on Wednesday. The NIA alleged that Shahid used to receive funds through a US-based international wire transfer company from Aijaz Ahmed Bhat, alias Aijaz Maqbool, another accused in the case who is living in Saudi Arabia for many years. A resident of Solina area of Srinagar, Bhat has been associated with Hizbul Mujahideen. Sources said that Bhat is already under scanner in Saudi Arabia after the Indian Government raised the issue.
The agency alleged Shahid was “one of several Indian contacts of Bhat” who had been in telephonic contact with him for receiving money transfer codes.
The NIA claimed so far he had received a total of nearly Rs 4.5 lakh through eight international wire transfers.
The case, registered by the NIA in April 2011, relates to the transfer of money from Pakistan to Jammu & Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi, which the agency believed was used in funding terrorism and secessionist activities.
Salahuddin, who has been declared ‘Specially designated global terrorist’ by the US State Department, is based in Muzaffarabad since 1993 when he crossed the line of Control (loC) to operate from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) that he refers to as base camp for Kashmir insurgency. His five sons from first marriage are living in his native village Soibugh in central Kashmir’s Budgam district. None of them has become an active militant.
The NIA has so far filed two chargesheets against six people -- including GM Bhat, an aide of Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Sidiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani liloo and Farooq Ahmed Dagga, who are all in judicial custody. Two others -- Mohammed Maqbool Pandit and Bhat -- were also chargesheeted by the NIA but are absconding. An Interpol Red Corner notice has been issued against them.
The NIA had also registered two others cases related to terror funding -- one in November 2011 and the other in May this year. The agency had filed a charge sheet against 10 people -- including Syed Salahuddin in the April 2011 case. In the recent case, the NIA arrested 10 people -- including some close relatives and aides of Geelani.
The NIA cracked whip on Kashmiri separatists after a news channel captured several prominent separatist leaders -- including Nayeem Khan and Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bita Karate -- in a sting operation, admitting that they receive funds from across the border to perpetuate subversive and secessionist activities in Kashmir. This led to filing of FIR and a massive crackdown against separatists. Besides Khan and Karate, Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah Fantosh and prominent businessman Zahoor Watali have been arrested. The NIA also summoned several other leaders -- including Kashmir Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom, legislator Sheikh Abdul Rashid and Geelani’s two sons Nayeem and Naseem.