NIA summons PhD scholar, trader in terror-funding case

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has summoned Kashmir University PhD student Aala Fazil, head of Kashmir Traders' and Marketing Federation chief Yaseen Khan and two Hurriyat leaders — Abdul Hameed Magrey and Wali Mohammad —for questioning on Monday in its J&K terror funding case.

The Kashmir traders' body has called for a strike on Monday to protest Khan's summoning. Sources said they will be questioned about alleged funding to various groups which pelted security forces with stones.

Meanwhile, Kashmir Bar Association president Mian Qayoom is likely to be summoned again by the NIA, sources said, adding that many points related to his statement recorded earlier were being corroborated.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 against separatist and secessionist leaders, including unknown members of the Hurriyat Conference, who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs, officials said.

The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, the probe agency said in the FIR.

Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front of the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused.

The FIR also names organisations such as the two factions of the Hurriyat, one led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an all-women outfit of separatists.