Pakistan funding terror through Hurriyat, says NIA

In 2016 and 2017, when New Delhi was cracking down separatists' Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) under hardliner S.A.S. Geelani, and simultaneously trying to hold talks with those who were not part of it, the JRL made a strong call for ''unity'' as they were apprehensive that a crackdown by the law enforcement agencies may happen soon. Technical evidence gathered by the NIA reveals that regular calls for unity were made by the JRL which was trying to hint at the government's carrot and stick policy to tackle the seperatists.

One such WhatsApp message retrieved by the NIA was a communication between Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Akbar Khanday, the spokesperson of Hurriyat Conference (G). In this WhatsApp message, Khanday says, ''In the 1990s, the situation was more complex...We paid a lot in terms of precious lives, we were engaged in petty and non serious matters and instead of following logic we were getting swayed by emotions. Disunity and differences proved disastrous in the past and enemy forces succeeded at various stages to sabotage our mission. Now is the time to remain cautious.'' He is learnt to have said, ''On one hand they are hatching conspiracies and on the other hand using their repressive measures and military might to sabotage the movement,'' he added, as per the chargesheet.

Now, the government's special representative in Kashmir, Dineshwar Sharma is holding talks with various groups in J&K even as the NIA has filed its chargehseet in the terror funding case naming 12 people, including seperatist leaders and LeT patron Hafiz Saeed and Hizb chief, Syed Salahuddin.

What is worrisome for the security agencies is that the NIA probe into the terror funding also came across a hidden conspiracy to raise a new generation of pro-Pakistan Kashmiri youth, who were technocrats and doctors. The NIA has claimed that this was being done with the help of seperatists in collusion with terrorist groups and Pakistani establishment by providing scholarships and facilitating education to children of militants and ex-militants in Pakistan.

The National Investigation Agency probe into the Kashmir terror funding case has thrown up evidence to show that students going to Pakistan on student visa were either relatives of ex-militants or active militants, who had indulged in various anti-national activities. They were migrating to Pakistan in the garb of seeking medical education and management courses and had been getting the active support of Hurriyat leaders, particularly S.A.S. Geelani, said the NIA in its chargesheet in the case. It was Geelani who had shot off letters of recommendation for their applications to the High Commission of Pakistan, according to NIA's chargesheet. The NIA will be using the evidence to blow the lid off, of what it believes is a larger conspiracy to “prepare a generation of doctors and technocrats in Kashmir who will have leanings towards Pakistan.”

The NIA is backing its case with documents seized from the house of Nayeem Khan, in which he recommended a student for admission in Standard Medical College in Pakistan because “her family has remained committed to the freedom struggle through thick and thin.”

Nayeem Khan is the chairman of National Front, a political separatist outfit of J&K. Another document seized from the house of Shahid Ul Islam clearly shows that the Hurriyat leaders were sending recommendations to the Pakistani High Commission for the issuance of Pakistani visa, says the NIA. Shahid Ul Islam alias Aftab Ahmad Shah is the spokesperson and media advisor of All Party Hurriyat Conference (Mirwaiz Umar Farooq faction), says the investigating agency. The triangular nexus of terrorists, Hurriyat and the Pakistani establishment are the three vertices which are ostensibly patronizing the Kashmiri students, says the NIA.

The NIA in its chargesheet says that ''militants and ex-militants who had fled to Pakistan would pursue their admission cases with the concerned medical colleges with the help of Hurriyat leaders based in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir.” Further, these students who were recommended for allotment of MBBS seats and engineering seats in Pakistan were also being offered scholarships under various schemes of the Pakistan government.