Alleged terror funding: NIA raids 11 more locations in Kashmir

Srinagar: National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday raided and subsequently searched eleven more locations in Kashmir Valley’s twin districts of Budgam and Baramulla in connection with a case pertaining to the alleged diversion of funds to militant outfits raised by right-wing Jama’at-e-Islami , Jammu and Kashmir (JeI) through donations at home and abroad.

The NIA officials reiterated that investigations have revealed that the JeI continued to indulge in secessionist activities including raising funds for militants even after being declared an unlawful association under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 in February 2019.

They said that Thursday’s searches conducted at the premises of the members and sympathisers of JeI in Budgam and Baramulla led to the recovery of several digital devices and incriminating material.

The agency had on May 4 conducted searches at the premises of JeI members and supporters at 16 locations, including eleven in Baramulla in the Kashmir Valley and five in Kishtwar district of the Jammu region. Similar searches were carried out at the homes of JeI activists across the Valley in June last year and at 56 locations in eight of the twenty districts of J&K in August 2021.

The NIA had filed a chargesheet against four accused Javaid Ahmad Lone, Aadil Ahmad Lone, Manzoor Ahmad Dar and Rameez Ahmad Kondu associated with the JeI in Special Court, Patiala House, New Delhi, on May 12 last year. It had earlier on February 5, 2021 registered a suo motu case in the matter, the officials said.

The searches were conducted also at the offices and other premises of Falah-e-Aam Trust (FAT), a subsidiary of the JI which runs a number of schools and orphanages in J&K. In June last year, the J&K government had ordered derecognition of and cessation of academic activities at more than three hundred schools being run by the FAT across the UT.

The NIA has claimed that the investigations have revealed that the right-wing cadre-based socio-religious-political organisation had been diverting large sums of money received through donations at home and abroad to fund separatist militants. The JeI members had been collecting funds domestically and abroad through donations particularly zakat and other forms of mandatory and voluntary Islamic charity to help the needy and carrying out various welfare activities but, as has been claimed by the NIA, these funds were instead being used for violent and secessionist activities.”

It also alleged, “The funds raised by JeI are also being channelised to militants such as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and others through well organised networks of JeI cadres". JeI has also been motivating impressionable youth of Kashmir and recruiting new arakeen (members) in J&K to participate in disruptive secessionist activities,” the NIA has alleged.

The Union Home Ministry had on February 28, 2019 banned the JeI for a period of five years after declaring it an “unlawful association”. The MHA had in its order said that the JI has the potential of disrupting the unity and integrity of the country. It also claimed that if the party’s activities are not curbed immediately, it is likely to “escalate its subversive activities including an attempt to carve out an Islamic State out of the territory of Union of India”, continue advocating the secession of J&K, and propagate “anti-national and separatist” sentiments.

The MHA had accused the JeI of being the main organisation responsible for the propagation of separatist and radical ideology in the former state particularly Kashmir Valley. Earlier the police had in a major crackdown arrested the leadership and prominent activists and sympathisers of the JeI. Most of them were subsequently detailed under J&K’s stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).

JeI, J&K is an independent organisation-separate from Jama’at-e-Islamic Hind and Jama’at-e-Islami Pakistan.