In a massive crackdown on terror funding in the valley, former independent MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Rashid Engineer, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday in connection with a case related to the funding of terror activities in Kashmir.
Former Jammu & Kashmir MLA, Rashid Engineer has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency, in connection with terror-funding case. pic.twitter.com/sljHGa4fua
— ANI (@ANI) August 9, 2019
Rashid Engineer was questioned in 2017 in connection with the terror funding case and was against summoned for questioning last week.
The officials have said that he could not provide any convincing answers for the questions asked and hence, custodial interrogation was a necessity. His name had cropped up during the interrogation of businessman Zahoor Watali, who was arrested by the NIA for allegedly supplying money to terror groups and separatists in the Valley.
The NIA had registered a case against Hurriyat and other separatists for being hands in glove with terror outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs to spread unrest in the valley.
The list of the offences that have been committed by these elements is long. The FIR was filed against such elements for sending and receiving money through illegal means, including Hawala, financing terror, stone-pelting on security forces, burning down schools, disrupting peace and waging a war against India.
Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ud- Dawa, the front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been named in the FIR as an accused.
The FIR also names organisations such as the two factions of the Hurriyat, one led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an all-women outfit of separatists.
Recently, the Editor of a Kashmir newspaper called Kashmir Reader was also questioned by the NIA. It was alleged that such journalists from the valley were helping ISI media cell.
A few days ago, NIA had attached the Srinagar property of Kashmiri separatist Asiya Andrabi as ‘proceeds of terror crime’. The property has been used for the furtherance of terrorist activities of a proscribed terrorist organisation Dukhtaran-E-Millat. Asiya Andrabi was arrested last month along with several other separatists.
