Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 24: The National Investigating Agency (NIA) today quizzed two sons of separatist leader and hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani at its headquarters in New Delhi in connection with terror funding probe and hawala operations in the Kashmir valley.
This is for the second time that both sons of Geelani have been questioned by the NIA.
Sources told the Excelsior that the NIA wants to know the source of funding for assets managed by them and their other family members, apart from some benami transactions, which the Agency suspects were owned by the family members of the separatist on various names.
Sources said Nayeem and Naseem, sons of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were questioned earlier on August 8. The elder son Nayeem is a surgeon by profession, while Naseem is an employee of the Jammu and Kashmir Government.
According to sources, the two were asked to bring certain documents related to financial transactions that have come under the scanner of the NIA.
The NIA wanted to study the documents to ascertain real owners of some of the assets, which the Agency believed were owned by the family members of separatists as benami property. The documents could make the things clear, they added.
Sources didn’t rule out another round of questioning of Geelani’s sons. Geelani’s son-in-law, Altaf Ahmad Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and sent to jail after interrogation. A total of nine separatist leaders and a businessman have been arrested by the NIA and Enforcement Directorate from Kashmir in connection with terror funding and hawala operations so far.
Nayeem is tipped as the natural successor to lead the Tehrek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate comprising pro-Pakistan hardline groups, after his 87-year-old ailing father.
The NIA had registered the case of terror funding and named Hafeez Saeed, leader of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, as an accused.
It had registered the case on May 30, accusing separatist and secessionist leaders of being in cahoots with terrorist groups.
The case was registered over raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including through hawala channels, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in the State.
The case also included causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.
It was the first time since the rise of militancy in the early 1990s that a Central probe agency conducted raids in connection with the funding of terrorist and separatist groups.
Meanwhile, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) today carried out raids at Radhika Jewellers at Jain Bazaar.
Sources said the DRI officials during the day-long raid seized some documents and other items from the jewelers for questioning in connection with the case of gold seizure.
Sources said the DRI sleuths had seized some gold at New Delhi few days back. Today’s raid was in connection with that seizure, they added and said no arrests have been made so far in the case.
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