Srinagar/New Delhi, May 19: A National Investigation Agency (NIA) reached here today to quiz separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and three others, alleged to be involved in subversive activities and receiving funds from LeT chief Hafiz Saeed.
The investigating agency has registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against Geelani and Naeem Khan, who was seen on television during a sting operation purportedly confessing to receiving money from Pakistan-based terror groups, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate' and Gazi Javed Baba of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.
An NIA spokesperson said the separatists were receiving funds from Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Saeed to carry out subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley.
Retorting to the reports of National Investigative Agency (NIA) booking Hurriyat leaders for allegedly receiving funds from Pakistani sources such as LeT`s Hafiz Saeed to foment violence in the Jammu and Kashmir region, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said that the accused must be interrogated and punished as per the law of the land.
BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said that if the Hurriyat leaders were accepting money from illegitimate sources, then they must be held accountable for the same.
“There have been instances and specific reporting about leaders of the Hurriyat conference receiving funds through unapproved and illegal sources,” said Kohli.
“From this perspective, if they are receiving funds from, for example, somebody in Pakistan in cash beyond the prescribed amount, then they are obviously answerable for it and when we see the situation there, where militants are involved and if these funds are related to terrorism, then the NIA will have to look at it,” he added.
Echoing similar sentiment, another BJP leader GVL Narsimha Rao urged that it was an open secret that Hurriyat was accepting money from Pakistan and that it is high time that needed to be exposed.
“It has always been an open secret that separatist groups and those who are actually giving a financial assistance to disturb peace in Jammu and Kashmir region are all funded by Pakistan,” said Rao.
“Not only there have been allegations and evidence available in the public domain, but recently many media organisations have also brought out the manner in which separatist groups have fuelled trouble and created disturbances like stone pelting.
According to reports, post the recent arrest of two ISI operatives in India, it has come to light that separatists in Jammu and Kashmir area have been getting a constant flow of funds – to the tune of Rs. 70 lakh – from Pakistan`s ISI over the past few months.
Slew of documents that have been accessed that cite that the nexus between Pakistan and the separatist leaders is responsible for instigating the youth to conduct violent acts in the conflict-ridden state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Also, while Hurriyat leaders and separatists have been telling Kashmiris to not send their children to army-run schools, alleging that these institutions were weaning the next generation away from their religion and culture, the family members and children of many of these have got the best education, settled abroad and eventually led a luxurious life.
An apparent example of how the kith and kin of these Hurriyat leaders availed the above-mentioned is the faction of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, which inversely always has goaded the youth of Kashmir to come out on the roads and leave their studies for a `bigger cause`, indirectly urging them for `stone-pelting`.
