Neeraj Chauhan| TNN |The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Exposing the links of separatists with Pakistan and terror outfits operating from its soil, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed that a website of the Syed Ali Shah Geelani-led Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and that of US-designated terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen are designed and administrated by the same person, that too from Rawalpindi.
NIA’s chargesheet in the Jammu and Kashmir terror funding case, exclusively accessed by TOI, talks about the technical support provided by Pakistan to separatists. It says that Zakirullah, a Pakistani national based in Rawalpindi, has designed and continues to manage Tehreek-e-Hurriyat’s website www.thjk.org and HM’s site www.hizbulmedia.org . “The Pakistani telephone numbers registered on both these portals belong to Zakirullah. He also regularly stayed in touch with some of the separatist leaders arrested and chargesheeted by us,” said an NIA official, quoting the chargesheet.
Digging further into the association of separatists with Pakistan-based state and non-state actors, NIA has mentioned that Pakistan’s spy agency ISI has a “Kashmir Committee” headed by a Brigadier-rank officer to plan and execute terrorist attacks, violence, stone pelting, funding, recruitment, logistics and other anti-India activities. The “Kashmir Committee” has members from Pakistani army, ISI, the Syed Salahuddin-led United Jihad Council, separatists and others, says NIA.
NIA has explained in its chargesheet how the present case goes beyond funding of separatists or their ideology. “It is an organised platform run by Pakistan to integrate Kashmir-based so-called resistance leaders with banned terror groups,” said a source.
The chargesheet states that the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of separatists in Kashmir with Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik as its top leaders, has a convenor in Islamabad — identified as Ghulam Mohammad Safi — while one Parvez Ahmad liaises with the Pakistan government on behalf of Geelani and others.
“The documents, emails, messages, videos, statements recorded by 300 witnesses and information collected through intelligence sources proves that terrorists, Pakistan army/ISI and so called resistance leaders from Kashmir are interlinked. Some traders, former militants and businessmen operating from Dubai, Pakistan and other countries are also part of this plan to destabilise Jammu and Kashmir,” said an NIA officer.
As first reported by TOI, without naming them as accused in the chargesheet, NIA has already referred to senior Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Asiya Andrabi, Yasin Malik and Shabbir Shah as the “organisers” of the subversive activities in Kashmir.
Sources said that a probe against these five is continuing and their names would be added in the supplementary chargesheet. NIA will soon send a formal request under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to Pakistan and UAE seeking details about those working for Hurriyat.
In its 12,794-page chargesheet, the NIA has named Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin, seven separatists, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah, a prominent businessman and two stone pelters.
