NIA raids a dozen places in Kashmir after terror funding tip-off

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted raids at about a dozen places in the Kashmir valley in connection with alleged terror funding from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), official sources said here on Wednesday. NIA personnel, assisted by local Crime Branch (CB) and state police raided about a dozen places in Srinagar and Tangmarg in Baramulla district and Handwara in the frontier district of Kupwara since early Wednesday morning.

Details about the raids have not yet been disclosed. The NIA has arrested a number of separatist leaders, including spokespersons of both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC), two sons and a son in law of HC chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani last month after their questioning in Srinagar.

NIA also conducted raids at the homes of other separatist leaders after a formal FIR was registered following alleged admission in a sting operation by Nayeem Ahmad Khan, chairman of National Front (NF) that separatists were receiving funds for terror activities in Kashmir from abroad.

Khan, who is also under arrest, was later suspended from the HC headed by Geelani. The disclosure by Khan led to NIA raids at several places in Delhi as well, along with Haryana, Jammu and Srinagar. Meanwhile, Enforcement Directorate (ED) also arrested Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) chief Shabir Ahmad Shah in connection with 2015 money laundering case. UNI