The National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a charge sheet has said a Pakistan High Commission staffer, who was expelled in 2016 on allegations of spying, had helped persons carry out out terrorist and secessionist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Several of these persons were arrested last year.
The charge sheet does not name the official but details the “pattern” of his meetings with separatist leaders that led to protests and violence in the Kashmir Valley.
The official, Mehboob Akhtar, was declared a persona non grata and sent back to Pakistan after he was caught by the Delhi police in October 2016 for allegedly receiving sensitive documents pertaining to national security.
The NIA filed a 12,794-page charge sheet against 12 people, including Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen head Syed Salahuddin in a city court last month.
In the charge sheet, the agency has traced the militant activities in J&K since early 90s and says the protests in the Valley in the aftermath of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in 2016 were “not spontaneous” but a part of an “organised effort.” Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces.
Separatists named
The Joint Resistance Leadership, an alliance of separatist leaders has also been named in the chargesheet. The JRL includes Tehreek-e-Hurriyat headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
“The NIA said the separatist leaders in the Kashmir Valley used to consult their counterparts in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir before issuing protest calendars. It was not as if people were throwing stones at security forces on their own. We have traced the emails between the separatists and those in PoK to corroborate the fact that the protests was organised,” an NIA official, quoting the charge sheet, said.
Another official said directives were given to those participating in protests to be an “underdog” and not “open fire or any excessive force” against the security forces.
The charge sheet also says that the 2008 and 2010 unrest in J&K that saw over hundred people dead were also “organised” by anti-India forces.
The charge sheet does not mention the agency’s earlier claim that the annual Haj pilgrimage is being misused to raise terror funds.
Earlier, the NIA had said some travel agents, who send Indians on the Haj pilgrimage, were hand-in-glove with associates of separatists based in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and a part of the money collected from pilgrims was diverted for terror and separatist activities.
An NIA official said they had gathered substantial material and technical evidence during the probe. Sixty locations were raided and 950 incriminating documents seized. There are 300 witnesses in the case.
Besides Saeed and Salahuddin, the agency has also named hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Fantoosh, Geelani’s personal assistant Bashir Ahmad Bhat and businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali.
Two other accused — photo journalist Kamran Yusuf and Javed Ahmad Bhat — have been identified as “stone pelters” in the charge sheet. Hurriyat Conference leaders Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khanday, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal have also been named.
The NIA has charged the Hurriyat leaders with acting under the overall guidance of and instructions from Saeed and Salahuddin and their “Pakistani handlers” and plotting strategies to launch violent protests.
