A day after the National Investigation Agency registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against top separatist leader Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and other Hurriyat leaders, the probe agency on Saturday questioned Farookh Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Kharate in Srinagar.
NIA officials said Dar was questioned regarding the hawala and terror funding the Hurriyat leaders allegedly received from Pakistan-based terror outfits including Lashkar patron Hafiz Saeed.
On Friday, the NIA had registered a PE against Geelani and other Hurriyat leaders namely Naeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar and Gazi Javed Baba of Tehreeq e-Hurriyat among others.
The questioning of Naeem Khan and Ghazi Javed Baba was still going on, an officials said
Sources in the NIA said the Hurriyat leaders had been asked to produce certain documents for examination. The agency was probing all angles of the funding of separatist leaders, the officials said.
In a bid to directly establish their role in fuelling the recent unrest in Kashmir due to stone pelting incidents, the NIA has also collected copies of the FIRs of about 150 cases and is also in the process of analysing these FIRs registered in the valley in the recent past, regarding damage caused to schools and public properties.
This was being done to investigate the larger conspiracy to perpetuate violence and chaos in Kashmir, NIA officials said.
Meanwhile, the agency has also identified the hotel in Srinagar where a television channel purportedly carried out a sting operation in which the Hurriyat leaders allegedly confessed to receiving funding from Pakistan. Since this forms a part of the ongoing investigation against Geelani and others, the NIA team, which is camping in Srinagar, is completing the formalities of identification of the room where the sting operation was reportedly carried out and is collecting all records.
