‘Malik, Andrabi, Alam to be charged in terror funding case’  

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is almost ready to file a supplementary charge sheet in terror funding case naming Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman Yasin Malik, Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi and All Party Hurriyat Conference General Secretary Masarat Alam.

It is learnt that the agency may file the charge sheet before October 15 after getting the Home Ministry's nod for prosecution of Malik, Andrabi and Alam - all taken into custody by the NIA in April and now lodged in the Tihar Jail here.

To be filed under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the charge sheet reportedly runs to over 1,000 pages and mentions name of Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, sources said.

Incidents of stone pelting and terrorist activities between 2010 and 2016 - during which Malik, Andrabi and Alam allegedly received funds from Pakistan to carry out terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir - would be covered in the charge sheet, they said.

The move comes just two months after the Narendra Modi government scrapped Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

A special team in the Home Ministry is learnt to be scrutinizing NIA's proposal regarding sanction of prosecution and the final decision is likely to come by next week, said the source. Under the UAPA Act, the Central government needs to consider the report of the authority before giving its sanction.

In its first charge sheet filed last year, the agency named hardline Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Fantosh, Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali, Naeem Khan, Raja Mehrajudin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmed Bhat, alias Peer Saifullah, Aftab Hilali Shah, alias Shahid ul Islam, Farooq Ahmed Dar, alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khandey, alias Ayaz Akbar and Javed Ahmed Bhat, among others.

The supplementary charge sheet against Malik, Andrabi and Alam would mention about diaries pertaining to contacts of hawala operators, traders, ledger books containing accounts of cross-border Line of Control (LoC) trade of various trading companies, details of bank accounts of Jammu and Kashmir, and travel documents of some entities showing their visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The NIA had registered the case in May 2017 against various separatist leaders who were acting in connivance with terrorist organisations like Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Dukhtarane Millat, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for collecting funds through illegal means for funding terrorist activities and stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.