The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday attached 17 properties of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali in a terror funding case. Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik is currently serving a life sentence in the case. The NIA said the case pertains to terrorist and separatist activities carried out by banned ISI-backed organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), JKLF, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and others in Jammu and Kashmir.
It said that these organizations were spreading terror and violence in the valley by promoting and carrying out attacks on civilians and security forces. The probe agency said 17 properties of Watali, a “financier of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir”, in Handwara area of Kupwara district were attached on the orders of the Special NIA Court, Patiala House, under Section 33(1) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Was. ) Act (UAPA) (UAPA). These banned terrorist groups were using the Hurriyat Conference, which was formed in 1993, as a front to carry out and support separatist activities in Kashmir.
Investigation revealed that the separatists, including Hurriyat, as accused in the case, had entered into a criminal conspiracy and adopted a strategy of inciting the general public and resorting to violence to create a disturbed atmosphere in the Kashmir Valley, the NIA said. It states that Watali used to send funds raised from various sources to Hurriyat leaders to promote the separatism of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India. The investigation revealed that Watali was a “hawala carrier”, receiving funds from Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s “emir” and top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, Hafiz Saeed, who is a UN ‘special agent’. Designated Global Terrorist’. A ‘listed global terrorist’ of the state and the United Nations, the NIA said.
Saeed was the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Watali had received foreign funds running into crores in his bank account from various sources between 2011 and 2013. NIA said that apart from this, he had received foreign remittances in his Proprietorship firm M/s ‘Trison International’, Srinagar and unexplained remittances were also found in his NRE bank accounts. The probe agency said that Watali had allegedly shown the sale of a plot of 20 kanals of land owned by Watali’s company M/s ‘Trison Farm and Construction Pvt Ltd’ to Naval Kishore Kapoor, a co-accused in the case. However, it said, investigation found that neither Watali nor his above-mentioned company was the owner of this plot of land in the revenue records.
Watali was arrested by the NIA in 2017 under various sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). A trial court had in May last year framed charges against Watali and others in a case related to alleged militancy and separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir in 2017. Watali was moved out of jail in February last year and placed under house arrest on medical grounds. He is currently facing trial before the Special NIA Court in Delhi. Besides JKLF chief Malik, 17 others, including Hizb-ul-Mujahideen top commander Syed Mohammad Yusuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin, were chargesheeted in the case, which was registered suo motu by the NIA on May 30, 2017. Malik was convicted of all charges against him and was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2022.
(With inputs from PTI)
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