Mirwaiz appears before NIA in terror funding case

Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq on Monday appeared before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) here in connection with its ongoing probe into the terror funding case, officials said.

A senior NIA official told IANS that Mirwaiz, who leads the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, arrived at the NIA headquarters amid security provided by the agency, right from his arrival at the Indira Gandhi International airport here.

The separatist leader was accompanied by Hurriyat Conference leaders Abdul Ghani Bhat and Maulana Abbas Ansari.

The Mirwaiz, charged with involvement in the case, had earlier ignored two summons of the NIA, citing security reasons and seeking that he be questioned in Srinagar itself. However, the NIA, in its third summon on Friday, assured that it would ensure security to him in Delhi.

The NIA had registered the case of terror funding behind the violence in the Kashmir Valley in May 2017 and in July 2017, it arrested Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah.

Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir's merger with Pakistan. Shahid-ul-Islam is an aide of the Mirwaiz, and Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat.

--IANS

aks/vd