NIA grills Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Fantoosh in terror fund probe

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday questioned hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law, Altaf Ahmed Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, in connection with its investigation into the funding of terror and subversive activities in Kashmir.

A team of officials grilled Shah, who arrived at the NIA headquarters here this morning, regarding the alleged funding of the Geelani-led Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

The NIA called Shah for questioning days after collecting "some material" from Shah's Srinagar residence during a raid. The sleuths scrutinised the “material” before calling Shah for questioning.

Apart from being the son-in-law of Geelani, Shah is perceived to be influential in the policies of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

The NIA had carried out raids at 26 places on June 03 and seven places on June 04 across Srinagar, Delhi, and Haryana. Besides Shah, among those raided were separatists Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Nayeem Khan and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate'.

The raids were part of NIA's efforts to clamp down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had recovered unaccounted account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups including LeT and HM.

The NIA investigation also seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who threw stones at security forces, burned down schools and damaged government establishments.

Bank accounts and lockers revealed during the probe had been frozen.

Besides electronic gadgets, phone diaries and documents such as rough receipts and vouchers had been seized from alleged hawala operators, financiers and office bearers of separatist groups.

During the searches, a few thousand Pakistani rupees and currencies belonging to the UAE and Saudi Arabia were seized by the NIA.

The Agency has alleged that since cross-LoC trade at Uri in Kashmir and Chakan-da-bad in Jammu was based on a barter system, some businessmen "under- or over-invoiced" their bills, and the difference in payment was later used for promoting subversive activities in the Valley.

This is for the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s that a central probe agency has carried out raids in connection with funding separatists.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had executed searches against some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.

However, no criminal case was registered then.

The NIA has also roped in the government's cyber security arm to analyse electronic evidence collected during its raids.

Twenty-two laptops and computers, 100 mobiles and nearly 200 pen drives and memory sticks had been sent to the Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-IN) for creating backup files. The CERT-IN will also provide other technical details related to the data, the sources said.

The CERT-IN has also been asked to look for deleted material in the electronic gadgets, they said.

The NIA action came in the wake of the case it registered against Lashkar-e-Toiba founder Hafiz Saeed and other terror organisations under the provisions of waging war against the country and criminal conspiracy, after it converted a May 19 preliminary enquiry against Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani and his close aide and Hurriyat provincial President Nayeem Khan, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat leader Ghazi Javed Baba, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Farooq Ahmed Dar aka Bitta Karate.

The NIA registered a case against Pakistan-based organisations after a news channel released videos of the separatist leaders who confessed to receiving funds from Pakistan to incite trouble in Kashmir.

The NIA raids were carried out following the questioning of three separatist leaders -- Nayeem Khan, who was seen on TV during a sting operation purportedly confessing to receiving money from Pakistan-based terror groups, 'Bitta Karate' and Gazi Javed Baba of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, in the national capital last month.

(With Agency inputs)