Acting against the Kashmir based separatist leaders, who, sources say, have been paid around Rs 1,000 crore by Pakistan’s ISI for spreading terror in the valley, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) carried out raids at 23 different places in Kashmir, Delhi and Haryana on Saturday. In the process, it seized documents and cash amounting to Rs 1.5 crore from the residences and offices of the separatist leaders and hawala traders who were helping the separatists to bring in the money through countries in the Gulf, including UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
In its FIR registered in the case, the NIA has named the separatist leaders, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed, functionaries of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), which is headed by Syed Salahuddin, and Asiya Andrabi, the founding leader of Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DuM), another separatist organisation. The NIA recovered property related documents, letterheads of LeT and HM, pen drives and laptops, among other things.
The raid in Srinagar, which was carried out by at least 25 personnel of the NIA and Enforcement Directorate, began at 4.30 am, after the investigating team, under heavy CRPF escort, left its camp office located at Humhama on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Among those raided by the NIA were Altaf Fantoosh, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, businessman Zahoor Watali, Shahid-ul-Islam, Awami Action Committee chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and some second rung separatist leaders belonging to both factions of the Hurriyat Conference and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.
The first such raid by any Central intelligence agency against Kashmir’s well-entrenched separatist lobby, ever since terrorism started in the valley in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was done after collecting substantive proof and documentary evidence. According to sources, the Central agencies had started working on the links between the separatist forces and the Pakistan based terror organisations from April, after the country’s top leadership personally asked the agencies to take tough action against the separatists, who until now were being treated with kid gloves.
This newspaper had first reported in September 2015 that the Jammu and Kashmir government had spent close to Rs 560 crore for the “maintenance” of Kashmiri separatist leaders in the past five years, according to officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This huge amount was spent on their travel and accommodation in Kashmir, their elaborate security cover as well as travel out of the valley and stay in five-star hotels in New Delhi whenever they visited the national capital for talks with government officers and foreign dignitaries.
This newspaper had in April written that Pakistan intelligence agency ISI had released close to Rs 1,000 crore to separatist groups and over-ground workers of terrorist groups to fuel public protests in Kashmir after the death of terrorist Burhan Wani (ISI’s budget for Kashmir stone pelting is Rs 1,000cr, 2 April 2017).
Officials said that it was the beginning of the end of the separatist leaders and groups, that Government of India made up its mind of treating them as ordinary criminals rather than the voice of the “oppressed Kashmiris”. Officials stated that leaders of these groups will be arrested and tried for the crimes that they have committed and supported.