NIA attaches properties worth millions of terror accused in J&K's Pulwama

Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday attached eight properties worth millions of rupees of two terror accused in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district.

The NIA sources said that the properties including a residential house and farmlands located in different villages of Pulwama -five owned by terror accused Muhammad Shaffi Wani and three by Muhammad Tika Khan- were attached under the relevant provision of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1976. Earlier a special NIA court had authorised the agency to take the action against the accused, the sources added.

"The properties have been attached under the provisions of UA(P)A by the order of NIA Special Court vide order dated 30.09.2023", the NIA said.

Both Wani and Khan are accused in the case of the escape of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Muhammad Naveed Jatt alias Abu Hanzala from the police custody while he was being taken to Srinagar’s Government-run Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital from the City’s central prison in February 2018. In a shootout that took place within the hospital premises on February 6, 2018, two J&K policemen who were escorting Jatt were killed.

Jatt, a Pakistani national, was, however, killed in an encounter with security forces in central district of Budgam in November that year.

On February 12, 2019, a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant Hilal Ahmed Rather who had allegedly facilitated Jatt’s escape from the police custody was killed along with an Army jawan and another soldier was injured in a gunfight in Pulwama’s Ratnipora area. The NIA probing Jatt's escape had indicted Rather along with four other local men including Wani and Khan in its charge sheet filed in Jammu's special court on August 3, 2018.