The government has prepared a dossier on 13 individuals who have allegedly been found to be providing money to all major terrorist groups like LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen as also Hurriyat leaders, separatists and stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir for various secessionist activities. With terror financing links being traced to recent attacks on convoys of security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the law enforcement agencies NIA and Enforcement Directorate have started seizing properties belonging to these terror financiers to squeeze the terror fund flow. The ED has determined and quantified assets valued at over Rs 7 crore as proceeds of terror funding crimes under the first phase of a major joint operation.
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The dossier on alleged terror financiers names JuD chief and LeT patron Hafiz Mohammed Saeed; Hizbul Mujahideen chief Mohammed Yusuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin; media spokesperson and legal adviser to Hurriyat (Mirwaiz faction) Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Fantoosh; self styled chairman of National Front, Mohammed Nayeem Khan; chairman of JKLF (R) Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate; trusted lieutenant of SAS Geelani—Mohammad Akbar Khanday; former militant trained in PoK Mehrajuddin Kalwal; former Hizbul Mujahideen Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah; alleged Hawala dealer Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali and his close aide Nawal Kishore Kapoor.
“The Enforcement Directorate has zeroed in on proceeds of such crime and has begun action to freeze and seize such assets,” said a government official.
The first action initiated was to attach a plush bungalow of Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali in Gurugram near Delhi. Watali is presently lodged in Tihar Jail. According to investigators, he was acting as a conduit for funnelling terror finances. Incriminating documents seized by ED indicated that he was allegedly receiving money from Hafiz Saeed, Syed Salahuddin among others and was known to have important sources of Hawala financing operating out of Dubai also.
But Watali is only a cog in the wheel of the vast terror financing network, said a home ministry official.
According to the MHA, funds are flowing from state and non-state actors in Pakistan and channelled through the terror financiers for subversive activities in the valley and outside.
These funds have been provided to the leadership of valley-based terrorist groups for providing the means for misguiding, motivating and recruiting local youth to terrorist ranks. The operational activities of terror groups are also being financed including attacks on security forces personnel, camps and convoys, it said.
The dossier says that the money obtained through these channels is also being used by major secessionist formations, particularly All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). “These funds are used for maintaining top APHC leadership and also the massive propaganda machinery being used to arouse disaffection among the people of JK against the government.”
The aim, sources said, is to form a fertile pool of vulnerable young minds, which can be poisoned and exploited as gun fodder for violent activities aimed at destabilisation the state.
These funds are also being utilised to sustain the spreading of false information through media contacts, newspapers and social media. The extensive use of such funds is allegedly also being made to finance institutions focused on subverting the local population including through select organisations like recently banned Jamat-e-Islami (JK).
