Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 1: In a major decision aimed at curbing and investigating terrorism related incidents, terror and hawala funds and act as watchdog against other anti-national activities, emanating from Pakistan, the Union Home Ministry headed by Rajnath Singh has approved full-fledged office of National Investigating Agency (NIA) for four Northern States, which will be headquartered at Jammu.
The NIA branch office was today formally thrown open at Channi Himmat, Jammu.
“The NIA’s J&K office will cover the Northern States of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and will be headed by an IPS officer of the rank of SSP Jammu. The NIA today temporarily assigned charge of the office to an IPS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre and allocated the staff after getting nod from the Union Home and Finance Ministries,” official sources told the Excelsior.
This is only seventh office of the NIA in India, which has its headquarters in New Delhi. Its other branch offices included Hyderabad in Telangana, Guwahati (Assam), Kochi (Kerala), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Kolkatta (West Bengal).
Sources said the NIA has mooted the proposal for opening branch office in any part of Jammu and Kashmir after terror attack at Samroli in Udhampur district of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway last year in August followed by Pathankot in January this year. They added that the Home Ministry had approved the proposal and then sent it to the Finance Ministry headed by Arun Jaitley for financial clearance.
“After all approvals and completion of formalities, the NIA today formally launched its Jammu and Kashmir branch office at Channi Himmat in Jammu. The requisite staff and the temporary Incharge of the office have also been designated,” sources said, adding the Jammu office of the premier agency investigating several terror attacks will have jurisdiction over three other North Indian States of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.
According to sources, the NIA has been investigating terror fund and hawala racket running into several crores involving separatists and other influential persons in Jammu and Kashmir. The funds, which had their origin in some Gulf nations, were reportedly being used to fund present unrest and ongoing militancy in the Kashmir Valley. It has, however, challaned Samroli terror attack of Udhampur in which the NIA court has already framed charges.
Sources said the NIA branch office for four States was preferred in Jammu and Kashmir as it was hit by terrorism for past 26 years apart from the flow of hawala and terror funds to fuel militancy and present unrest in the Kashmir valley in which several bigwigs were also involved.
Earlier, the NIA teams had to come from New Delhi for investigations of the case and then continue to shuttle between Jammu and New Delhi, which was nearest office for the State. However, with the opening of its branch office in Jammu, the NIA would be able to take up investigations in terror attacks immediately in addition to flow of funds meant for fuelling terrorism, present unrest and other undesirable activities in the State especially the Kashmir valley.
“The Union Home Ministry’s decision to open NIA office in Jammu and Kashmir would go long way not only in the investigations of terror attacks and funds but also keeping surveillance on anti-national elements,” sources said.
The NIA J&K office will have staff like six other branches in the country.
The NIA is set to launch crackdown on terror funding in the Valley by the mentors of terrorists’ abroad using new kind of modus operandi to dodge the security and Intelligence agencies. The hawala money running into several crores has been pumped into the Valley so far, which was being used to fund the terrorism, sources said.
The Union Home Ministry had recently designated the NIA as Nodal Agency for investigations into entire terror funding in the Valley, which initially was being probed by multiple agencies like Enforcement Directorate, police and Intelligence wings of various security agencies.
Sources said the Home Ministry has ordered crackdown to block all hawala channels in Kashmir, which were being used to fund terrorism from abroad. After going through the reports of Intelligence agencies, the Ministry has given independent probe to the NIA.
“It has been discovered that instead of directly pumping the terror funds into the accounts of some separatists, terrorists, their Over Ground Workers (OGWs) or sympathizers, the funds were being routed through the bank accounts of ordinary citizens to keep police and Intelligence agencies in dark,” they said, adding this modus operandi was recently detected when Intelligence agencies detected huge banking transactions, which had been repeated after few months, in some accounts, whose holders were very ordinary people and had no relations abroad.
The account holders, who had received huge funds from abroad, couldn’t explain the receipt of huge amounts, when confronted by the Intelligence agencies and spilled the beans. Some of them, according to sources, had repeatedly received the funds from abroad within a gap of 2-3 or 5-6 months.
The account holders, who were ordinary citizens, running shops or other small business, revealed that the amount was being withdrawn by some unidentified persons from their accounts by taking blank cheques from them. The account holders were, however, given very small part of the funds for using their accounts.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel