Terror financing: Editor of prominent English daily quizzed by NIA, Geelani's grandson summoned

The NIA questioned the editor-in-chief of a prominent English daily from Kashmir for the second consecutive day on Tuesday in connection with a case related to funding of terror groups and separatist organisations in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said here Tuesday.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also summoned Anees-ul-Islam, the grandson of firebrand pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, to appear before it on July 9.

The questioning of the journalist is expected to continue, the officials said.

The journalist was issued summons last week.

Earlier, the general manager of the newspaper was summoned and questioned by the agency, which has registered a case to probe funding of separatist and terror groups in 2018 and carried out raids and arrested 14 people.

The editor-in-chief of the daily was being questioned about certain articles that had appeared in the newspaper during the agitation in 2016 after the poster-boy of Hizbul Mujahideen Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter, they said.

Besides funding, the scribe was being quizzed about his visits abroad, including those made to Dubai, they said.

In a related development, Anees-ul-Islam, grandson of Geelani, who heads hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference, has been asked to appear before the agency on Tuesday next week.

Anees's father Altaf Shah alias 'fantoosh' is Geelani's son-in-law and has been in Tihar jail for over a year now.

The NIA probe seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, stone pelting on security forces, burning down of schools and damaging of government establishments.

The case names Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the front for the banned Lashker-e-Taiba, as an accused.

It also names organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference factions led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat.