Shop sealed, 6 terrorists' arrested for murdering circus worker in Anantnag
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police on Wednesday sealed a shop in southern Anantnag that was being run by one of the six alleged cadres of ‘Kashmir Freedom Fighter’, believed to be an offshoot of proscribed Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), arrested by it earlier for their alleged involvement in the murder of a circus worker Deepak Kumar alias Deepu in the district earlier this year.
27-year-old Kumar, a resident of J&K’s Udhampur district, who had been working with a private circus company in the Valley for the past six years was shot by two scooty-borne gunmen when he had gone to a market in Anantnag’s Janglat Mandi area to buy milk on May 29 evening.
In June, the police had claimed that it had arrested five JeM militants involved in the gory act, thereby solving the case. A sixth person was arrested later.
The police said on Wednesday that a shop under the name of “The Game Modification '' located in the Zirpora area of Anantnag was used for the terror attack. It was being run by one of the accused Umer Amin Thoker and has been sealed under Section 25 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, it said.
The police identified the other accused as Sehran Bashir Nadaf, Ubaid Nazir Laigroo, Huzaif Shabir Bhat, Nasir Farooq Shah, and Suveed Showkat Bhat and said, “The arrested terrorists were linked with Kashmir Freedom Fighter, an offshoot of proscribed terrorist outfit JeM”.
Meanwhile, J&K’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) on Wednesday raided and searched residential houses and offices at 22 locations across the Union territory and Delhi in connection with a case pertaining to “illegal raising, layering and laundering of illegal proceeds of crime by the accused persons which subsequently might have been used in unlawful activities including secessionism and terrorism”.
The special teams of the SIA have, during these searches, seized what it claimed are incriminating materials in the shape of bank documents, cash books, credit and debit cards, checkbooks, invoices, mobile phones, SIM cards, passports, etc. which are being analysed for further investigation.
The officials said that during the investigations into the case, it was found that funds to the tune of Rs 85 crores were raised and laundered in a short span of less than two years and that the transactions took place mostly in cash to evade detection of law enforcement agencies.
