NIA raids houses of separatists, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in Kashmir

Srinagar, Feb 26: The National Investigation Agency on Tuesday carried out searches at premises of separatists, including Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, in connection with a case related to funding to terror and separatists groups in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The NIA team, accompanied by local police and CRPF personnel, swooped at residences of some of the separatist leaders, including the Mirwaiz, Naseem Geelani, son of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and chairman of Tehrek-e-Hurriyat Ashraf Sehrai, they said. There was no word about the recoveries made from these residences during the day-long searches.

Besides these, the houses of JKLF leader Yaseen Malik, Shabir Shah, Zaffar Bhat and Masarat Alam were also raided. Barring the Mirwaiz and Sehrai, all other leaders were inside jail for quite some time now. The NIA had questioned two maternal uncles of the Mirwaiz — Maulvi Manzoor and Maulvi Shafat — and his close aides last year. Both of them are retired senior government officers.

The NIA probe seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who pelted stones on security forces, burnt down schools and damaged government establishments.

The case names Hafeez Saeed, Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud Dawah, the front for banned Lashker-e-Taiba, as an accused, besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Millat.

PTI