NIA attaches properties of Hizb chief’s sons in tough message to terror outfits

Srinagar: The attachment of the immovable properties of the outlawed Hizbul Mujahideen’s ‘Supreme Commander’ Syed Salahuddin by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday has conveyed a tough message to the terror ecosystem in Kashmir.

Jamaat-e-Islami ideologue Syed Mohammad Yousuf Shah, who joined the terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen in 1991 and was appointed as its ‘Supreme Commander’, was a permanent resident of Soibug village in Budgam district. He has been operating from Pakistan since 1993 and was also designated as the head of the United Jihad Council (UJC)—a conglomerate of 13 terror organisations active in Jammu and Kashmir.

The United States of America’s State Department has designated both Hizbul Mujahideen and MJC as terror organisations and Salahuddin a designated terrorist. The Government of India has also taken similar actions and booked Salahuddin in a number of terror-related cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and other laws.

Of Salahuddin’s five sons, one is working as a CVTS surgeon after doing M Ch (Master’s degree in Surgical Science) from Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) and another is working as a government school teacher on temporary arrangement. However, three of his sons have faced one or the other action from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. His youngest son, Syed Mueed Yusuf, has been terminated as a Manager (Information Technology) at the Jammu and Kashmir Government’s Entrepreneur Development Institute (EDI).

Syed Shakeel Ahmad, who was working as Technical Officer at Department of Immunology, SKIMS, since early 1990s and Syed Shahid Yousuf, a graduate in agriculture science and working as an Agriculture Extension Officer in the J&K Government’s Agriculture Department, were arrested by the NIA in a terror funding case, lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail and subsequently dismissed from service in 2021. Following a long-drawn procedure, the NIA on Monday got their immovable properties attached at Narsingh Garh, Mohalla Rambagh, Srinagar, and Soibug, Budgam, under section 33(1) of UAPA.

Both Shahid Yusuf and Syed Shakeel are lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since their arrest in October 2017 and August 2018. They were chargesheeted on 20th April 2018 and 20th November 2018, respectively. They are facing charges of having received foreign funds from associates of their father and over-ground workers of Hizbul Mujahideen. The family has contended that Salahuddin or his associates or organisation have never sent any funds other than an amount of Rs 3 lakh once through a non-terror source for the treatment of his wife who was admitted at a hospital and later died.

Syed Salahudeen, who shifted to Pakistan in 1993, was designated as an individual terrorist by India in October 2020. “He continues to operate from Pakistan, from where he is guiding and instructing HUM cadres as well as activists of UJC, also known as Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC) which is a conglomerate of around 13 Pakistan-based Kashmir centric terror outfits”, said the NIA statement.

“Besides instigating and operationalizing militant activities in India, primarily in Kashmir valley, Syed Salahudeen has been raising funds and routing finances to India through trade routes, Hawala channels, and international money transfer channels for furthering the terrorist activities of HM cadres”, it added.

“The NIA launched investigations in November 2011 into the criminal conspiracy to raise/collect/provide funds to commit terrorist acts and distribute funds among the terror groups and their sympathizers in Jammu and Kashmir for the purpose of committing terrorist acts. The Special Cell of Delhi Police had initially registered a case in January 2011 and the case was subsequently taken over by NIA. Chargesheets as well as Supplementary Chargesheets were filed against eight accused in the case, including in 2011 and 2018”.

“NIA has been cracking down on terror funding machinery in a bid to dismantle the Pakistan-backed terrorist financing ecosystem that is operating in Jammu and Kashmir.  On Monday itself, the agency had also seized six shops in Awantipora in a case relating to a 2018 attack on CRPF Group Centre at Lethpora, J&K. Some land, including a house, belonging to the father of one of the accused was also attached in the same case in September, 2020”, it further added. A Police official’s son was Kashmir’s first suicide bomber in this attack, years after a Srinagar youth had exploded a car outside the main entrance of the Headquarters 15 Corps. Steel core ammunition, which could piece bulletproof vests, was also used for the first time in the sneak attack on the CRPF camp.

In 2021, the NIA also attached residential properties belonging to the kin of two accused in the case of the February 2019 terror attack on the CRPF convoy at Lethpora, Pulwama, in which 40 personnel were killed. Another residential property has also been attached by the NIA in the case related to the killing of a BJP leader and his brother—Anil Parihar and Ajit Parihar—in Jammu’s Doda district.

The NIA and the J&K Government’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) have attached a large number of the properties belonging to different separatist and militant leaders, mostly those of Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen in Jammu and Kashmir.