File photo of Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani (File Photo: PTI)
Srinagar/New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday filed an FIR against several Hurriyat leaders, including SAS Geelani, in connection with terror funding.
Others named in the FIR are Naeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar and 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
The NIA also carried out searches at 14 places in Kashmir and eight places in connection with terror funding received from Pakistan to conduct disruption in the Valley.
Earlier, the investigative agency had registered a Preliminary Enquiry and converted it into a Regular Case (RC) on Friday evening and began searches in the wee hours at the residences of separatist leaders in the Valley.​
Around eight hawala dealers and traders in the national capital were also raided, official sources said.
Among those raided were close aides and kin of hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others in the Hurriyat Conference.
Two places in Sonepat were also being searched by the NIA teams in this connection.
The raids follow questioning of three separatist– Nayeem Khan, who was seen on television during a sting operation purportedly confessing to receiving money from Pakistan-based terror groups, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’ and Gazi Javed Baba of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, in the national capital last month.
The separatists were allegedly receiving funds from the chief of Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), Hafiz Saeed, to carry out subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, including pelting stones at security forces, damaging public property and burning schools and other government establishments.
(With PTI Inputs)