The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has summoned two Kashmiri separatist leaders to its headquarters in Delhi tomorrow in connection with a case related to the funding of militant and “subversive” in Kashmir region.

Farooq Ahmad Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’ and Javed Ahmed Baba alias ‘Gazi’ of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat have been asked to bring certain bank and property documents, besides other papers, before the NIA team that had questioned them for four consecutive days earlier this month.

The questioning comes after the central probe agency, formed in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, named Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba chief Hafeez Saeed, hardline Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Jammu and National Front Chairman Nayeem Khan in a preliminary inquiry (PE). Khan has since been suspended from the Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference by Hurriyat (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

The case is based on a sting operation, aired on a New Delhi based news channel, in which Khan was purportedly shown confessing to receiving money from Pakistan-based militant groups through hawala channels.

Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’ and Baba alias ‘Gazi’, who are also named in the PE, will be again questioned for their alleged involvement in raising, collecting and transferring funds through hawala and other channels for militant funding in Kashmir as well as fuelling unrest and promoting stone-pelting in the Valley.

The NIA has also collected details of 13 accused charge- sheeted so far in the Valley in recent cases related to causing damage to schools and public property as part of a “larger conspiracy to perpetuate chaos” in Kashmir.  During their stay here, the NIA team, headed by its additional director general, also gathered evidence collected by the Jammu and Kashmir Police about the burning of schools.

Khan had allegedly claimed in the sting operation that the educational institutions had been targeted under plans hatched in Pakistan. The schools were damaged last year after banned Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

The NIA’s PE alleged that the separatists were receiving funds from the LeT chief to carry out subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, including pelting security forces with stones, damaging public property and burning schools and other government establishments.

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