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NIA registers case against Hurriyat's Geelani for receiving LeT funding
May 19, 2017
NIA team lands in Srinagar to quiz separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, alleged to be involved in subversive activities and receiving funds from LeT chief Hafiz Saeed.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said that the accused must be interrogated and punished as per the law of the land.
BJP
spokesperson Nalin Kohli said that if the Hurriyat leaders were
accepting money from illegitimate sources, then they must be held
accountable for the same.
"There have been instances and specific
reporting about leaders of the Hurriyat conference receiving funds
through unapproved and illegal sources," said Kohli.
"From this
perspective, if they are receiving funds from, for example, somebody in
Pakistan in cash beyond the prescribed amount, then they are obviously
answerable for it and when we see the situation there, where militants
are involved and if these funds are related to terrorism, then the NIA
will have to look at it," he added.
Echoing similar sentiment,
another BJP leader G.V.L. Narsimha Rao urged that it was an open secret
that Hurriyat was accepting money from Pakistan and that it is high time
that needed to be exposed.
"It has always been an open secret
that separatist groups and those who are actually giving a financial
assistance to disturb peace in Jammu and Kashmir region are all funded
by Pakistan," said Rao.
"Not only there have been allegations and
evidence available in the public domain, but recently many media
organisations have also brought out the manner in which separatist
groups have fuelled trouble and created disturbances like stone pelting.
I think all of them need to be exposed and be punished," he added.
The
NIA has registered a preliminary enquiry into the funding of Hurriyat
leaders - Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Naeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Gazi
Javed Baba and others in J-K by Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Muhammed
Saeed and other Pakistan based terrorists and agencies to carry out
subversive activities in Kashmir. According to sources, a team of NIA
led by a senior member has reached the Valley for the inquiry into
Hurriyat funding.
The team will probe into the nuances of the
funding, which are mostly being made for subversive activities including
stone pelting and damage of public properties there.
According
to reports, post the recent arrest of two ISI operatives in India, it
has come to light that separatists in Jammu and Kashmir area have been
getting a constant flow of funds - to the tune of Rs. 70 lakh - from
Pakistan's ISI over the past few months.
Slew of documents that
have been accessed that cite that the nexus between Pakistan and the
separatist leaders is responsible for instigating the youth to conduct
violent acts in the conflict-ridden state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Also,
while Hurriyat leaders and separatists have been telling Kashmiris to
not send their children to army-run schools, alleging that these
institutions were weaning the next generation away from their religion
and culture, the family members and children of many of these have got
the best education, settled abroad and eventually led a luxurious life.
An
apparent example of how the kith and kin of these Hurriyat leaders
availed the above-mentioned is the faction of Syed Ali Shah Geelani,
which inversely always has goaded the youth of Kashmir to come out on
the roads and leave their studies for a 'bigger cause', indirectly
urging them for 'stone-pelting'.
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